Shadows - Galaxy at War
by hpxii
Summary: As the Reapers invade, can a young lieutenant on the Normandy keep himself in one piece as the Reapers threaten to end all life in the galaxy? First part of a trilogy covering my slight AU version of Mass Effect 3. Original characters, action and dashes of awkward romance. Rated T for language and violence. (Currently editing Chapters 7 to 18 to reflect changes to story)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **Gulp... Well, having put doing something like this off for rather a long time, it seems like as good a time to upload this as any… welcome to the first of my series of ME3 stories! This is the first time I've really tried anything like this, so think I'm rightly nervous about it all! Please follow the story, leave a review or do whatever you personally do, but I hope you enjoy this particular take on one of my favourite games of all time...

This story will mainly follow my (main) original character through the Reaper War – Staff Lieutenant Naylor, an N7 Paladin who serves onboard the Normandy. It will eventually feature a romance between him and Liara, but that will be quite a way off towards the end of this part of the trilogy. Some of the back story with Naylor may seem rather extravagant, but I will get round to explaining it in time, and I try as much as I can to keep it solid through the story.

Along with Naylor, I've added a host of original characters to the Normandy's crew in this story. But, before you start with all the "Oh god, he's going to change everything!" most of them are going to be so incredibly unimportant. Think the nameless crewmembers in the CIC and those helmeted soldiers that appear on the Normandy in Priority: Vancouver and Priority: Earth and you'll get the gist of things. And on the note of changing things, this won't exactly be a stuck-to-canon story – if it was perfectly adhering to what happens in the game, then I wouldn't really bother with posting this, instead telling you to play Mass Effect 3 over and over in place of each chapter.

So yeah, it's a slight left-of-canon story, the main character's an original character I've created with a weird back story, there are lots of original characters and it's my first ever story of any reasonable length. Oh, and I write in British English, so expect lots of u's and spelling mistakes if you're used to American English (no hard feelings!).

I hope you enjoy!

* * *

**Day Zero. March 16th, 2186. Sol system, Local Cluster**

The Everest shook as more impacts slammed into the invisible kinetic barriers surrounding it. Electrical fires were breaking out inside, explosions filling the dreadnought's corridors as sparks from damaged wiring and terminals ignited against leaking flammable gases being released from broken pipes. Claxons drowned out the sound of hundreds of crew members shouting at each other, everyone working to save their ship from the forces opposing them. One final shot tore down the kinetic barriers, the round smashing the armour on the ship's side apart and exposing entire compartments to the cold void of space. In the CIC, the ship's commander, Captain Alicia Crockett, was close to panicking. The vessel she had commanded for a decade, referred to by her crew as the pride of the Alliance Navy, was falling apart around her. The first human dreadnought was meeting her end at the hands of an unknown synthetic enemy.

"CAPTAIN! We've lost barriers covering the starboard side, while our port kinetic barriers are at eight percent! Starboard compartments nine through thirteen on deck fourteen have been torn open to space. The starboard batteries are being evacuated." Another hit smashed into the starboard side, the hologram of the Everest lighting up red where the hit was recorded. It was perilously close to the dreadnought's drive core, and if a shot hit there, then the entire ship would be in extreme danger.

"God. How many killed?"

"Eight, captain. We _will_ lose many more if we don't act now! We need to get out of the battle line, escape and conduct repairs."

"We can't do that, Captain!" Another crew member shouted with a report from her station. "The drive core is destabilising! We've lost contact with engineering!"

When Crockett took time to respond, her XO shouted again, his voice straining to be heard above the noise of the bridge. "What do we do, captain?"

"Damn it all! All hands, abandon ship! Abandon ship!"

* * *

"All hands. All hands. Abandon ship, repeat, abandon ship." Naylor ran from his position in the ready room attached to the hangar bay as the automated announcement rang out across the entire vessel. His platoon ran with him, ducking through the corridors and avoiding the explosions that erupted in their paths. Crew members mingled with the platoon as they ran, the nearest escape pods barely a few seconds away ahead of them. Private Michaels pulled ahead, aiming to hold open the final door ahead of them for the rest of the crew. A single blast erupted around him, a single metal spur falling from the roof of the corridor and smashing into his head. The spur blocked the hallway, burning the hands of the few crew members who tried to push it out of the way.

"Roberts, Clarke! Biotics, now!" Sergeant Roberts, one of Naylor's sentinels, and Corporal Clarke, a vanguard, illuminated the hallway with blue fire, wrenching the spur from its position and tossing it to the side, away from the final door and freeing the corridor to allow the many dozens of crew members to reach the escape pods. The thunder of boots rang out above the din of explosions, barely allowing Naylor and Roberts a chance to pull the unconscious Michaels to his feet and haul him with them. "Westmoreland, Campbell! Prepare a pod, and get down whatever medical gear you can find!" The two privates ran ahead of Naylor, opening the pod's entrance and dragging medical gear down from their storage compartments. Clarke followed them, grabbing Michaels' shoulders and hauling him into the pod, Roberts and Naylor entering after them.

More explosions ripped through the escape pod bay, several crew members being tossed into bulkheads by the shockwaves. Knowing that to delay the launching of the pod was to sign their own death warrants, Naylor hit the launch button for the pod. Before the armoured shutters could slam shut, a single figure dove into the pod, his uniform scorched and torn, but the crew member was visibly unharmed. The pod was closed off from the rest of the dreadnought; explosive bolts firing as the pod was flung from its berth in the belly of the vessel. Boosters accelerated it away from the stricken ship, barely making it before more shots crashed into the Everest's flanks. Reaper vessels fired incessantly, cruisers and frigates exploding around the pod as it made good its escape from the battle line.

"Lieutenant! The network's going crazy, First Fleet is falling back through the relay, the Fourth's being annihilated over Earth!" From the single porthole in the pod, Naylor watched as the battle descended into chaos, several squadrons of Alliance ships beginning to disengage from the battle and escape through the looming Charon Relay. Other ships, those too wounded to make the faster than light jumps, remained, sacrificing their vessels to allow others to escape. Yellow blasts tore through the inky blackness of space, signalling the death of more servicemen in a futile struggle against the vast hordes of Reapers.

"How much air do we have?"

"Enough for two or three days, Lieutenant. If we add our armour's supplies, we should have enough for three days, maybe four if we regulate our supply."

"Sir, I'm Serviceman First Class Mira. I don't have an armour supply, sir."

"Then you use any oxygen masks we find instead of a helmet. Clarke, get Michaels' helmet on, but disconnect the breather plate for now. As soon as we reach critical levels of air, we get our helmets on and switch to our personal supplies." The marines pulled their helmets on, disconnecting the in-built air supplies and switching over to getting air from the pod's supply of oxygen. Clarke finished, before struggling with putting on Michaels' helmet without putting any pressure on the site of the head wound that he had taken. The visor on Naylor's own helmet, a specialist design based off of Inferno-pattern Armour, was hinged upwards, disconnecting the inbuilt supply of air in the back of his hardsuit and letting him breathe the onboard oxygen supply in the escape pod.

"Lieutenant, what the hell are those things? They're tearing through our ships like butter." Naylor zoned out from the conversation as he watched the final few moments of the Everest's life as a ship, the explosions reflecting off of his eyes as the last remnants of the First Fleet's rearguard was annihilated. In the din of the combat, he could make out a few human bodies, the life sucked out of them as they were exposed to the cold void of space. "Roberts, what do you think?"

"I think they look like Geth, Sarah. Remember the big dreadnought those synthetics used to attack the Citadel three years ago?"

"Nah, I think the batarians. They've had it in for us since Commander Shepard destroyed the Bahak-Alpha Relay in the Viper Nebula."

"They don't look like batarian ships, Clarke. The ships that the four-eyed bastards use are triangular, like cheese wedges. I still think they're Geth."

"They're not geth."

"What, Lieutenant? They batarian?" Naylor turned around from where he had been sitting by the porthole, looking at the rest of the group in the flight harnesses around him.

"They're Reapers."

* * *

Behind the escape pod that Naylor had abandoned ship in, the Everest was in her final death throes. Captain Crockett stood defiant on the bridge, working rapidly at damaged terminals and consoles alongside the few volunteers that were staying with the ship until her death, and theirs. The few weapons still operational on the vessel fired as fast as their automated reload cycles would allow. Hundreds of rounds blasted through the void, mostly impacting ineffectively against the kinetic barriers of the Reaper vessels tearing through the Alliance's First Fleet. A few were lucky shots, hitting the far weaker armour of the smaller destroyer-class vessels, and though they caused minimal damage, a very tiny number caused enough damage to disable the main weaponry on the destroyers, if only for a few minutes before another ship took the damaged one's place in the carnage.

"Captain, take a look at the readings from the drive core." The readout in front of Crockett showed a bleak sign. Were the ship to take another hit, the vessel would soon be annihilated as the drive core fully destabilised underneath it. The Everest is going down, Captain." The captain knew there was a single option left to them, something only done when a captain knew that his or her ship was beyond hope, beyond the possibility of withdrawing and repair. "

"I understand. I am initiating General Order No. 1. Ladies and Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure serving alongside you. Proceed to the last remaining escape pods on this deck. I will remain behind to enact the order." None of the remaining crew members moved from their posts, the highest ranking man amongst them stepping forward when the captain looked at them with one last, quizzical look.

"Ma'am, permission to speak candidly?"

"Granted, Chief."

"Ma'am, if the Everest is going to die, then we request permission to die with her." The captain nodded, smiling at the devotion that her crew still showed to their ship, even when their death would be guaranteed by doing so. Crockett smiled slightly, a small tear being shed from her eye as she walked towards her terminal at the rear of the CIC.

"Computer, initiate order one. Authorisation code Delta-One-One-Charlie-Oscar."

"Code confirmed. Drive core destabilising. Estimate time to destruction – thirty seconds."

"It has been an absolute honour to serve alongside all of you" The captain snapped a final salute, the crew members around her doing the same. "I'm not religious, nor do I know whether any of you are, but the first round in whatever lies beyond is on me. That is all." The countdown on the holographic display counted down, twenty seconds quickly descending to ten, then to five. The crew members around her tensed up as the display ticked over to zero.

* * *

From the porthole in his escape pod, Naylor watched as the Everest was annihilated in a ball of white fury, the explosion catching a trio of disabled cruisers around the ship, annihilating them and setting of a massive chain reaction, destabilising the cores of the cruisers caught by it and immolating a huge swathe of space around the corpse of the dreadnought. Naylor's pod barely made it out of the radius of the explosion, buffeted by the shockwaves and barely managing to reach safety, while a number of other pods were caught, the occupants dying a mercifully swift death as the pods around them disintegrated under the heat of the explosion. The occupants of Naylor's pod all looked outside the single window, "The Everest's gone."

* * *

**Day Zero. Citadel space station, Serpent Nebula**

The Presidium ring on the Citadel was a haven of peace and quiet, the conversations taking place around the entrance to the embassy complex being kept to respectable levels of noise, no-one being forced to raise their voice over the conversations of anyone else. A lack of urgency could be used to describe the diplomats there, calmly going around their ordinary day-to-day lives, ignorant of the situation that was slowly engulfing the vast swathe that was human-controlled space to the galactic east of the Citadel.

From her office high above the curved floor of the Presidium. Councillor Celia Tevos watched the people below, casting a careful eye over the hundreds moving about their daily lives on board the immense space station. How much would that scene change in the next few hours, she wondered, running a hand over her crests as she turned back to the proverbial mountain of reports she would have to go through, datapads piled high on her desk, taunting her for every moment that she delayed going through them.

It was not her fault. Barely half a standard day earlier, ten short hours, and she had been in a meeting with a tired, worn-out man she had never thought to see again. Aral Kharaz, the Batarian ambassador to the Citadel before his famous departure in the early years after the arrival of humanity into Citadel space, had requested a meeting to allow hundreds of Batarian refugees to seek a place of safety on the Citadel. He claimed that the Hegemony had been attacked, eradicated even, by a force orders of magnitude more powerful than the Batarians, despite their leaders' claims of militaries that rivalled the Turians and an economy in excess of that of the asari. Kharaz' argument seemed so illogical – to Tevos, it had originally sounded like the ambassador was wanting the Council's permission to allow the Batarians a chance to smuggle soldiers onto the station, to try and seize power from the Council and wreak petty revenge for what had been done decades before in better times.

It was only when Tevos received the reports from the Alliance that Batarians were flooding from Hegemony space through Alliance checkpoints, all talking of fearsome tides of death and destruction enveloping their worlds. It was so sudden the Alliance initially believed it to be an invasion of their space, before Fleet Admiral Hackett and Admiral Anderson, the former human Councillor, stepped in. The Alliance had declared that their entire military might was being placed on their highest alert levels. Coded transmissions were sent to the militaries of the salarians, turians and asari. All were initially ignored, but once the respective races' admirals paid attention, and the transmissions decoded, they all had the same message written in the open: The Reapers are here.

For the past three years, Tevos had been forced by the will of her own people to deny the entire idea of the existence of the Reapers since the attack on the Citadel in 2183. She had seen it there first hand, a single Reaper and the geth supposedly enslaved by it tearing ribbons through the turian, asari and salarian ships defending the heart of galactic space. She couldn't deny something she knew to be true – it was to go against the principles on which she stepped up to the role of councillor a century and a half before as a young matron, inexperienced in the chaos that could erupt in galactic politics. But her own government, her colleagues on the Council, Sparatus and Valern, and the governments of all four Council races had denied the reports. Only Anderson, Hackett and herself tried to prepare for the arrival of the Reapers, culminating in the Alliance sending Shepard to annihilate the Alpha Relay, wiping out an entire system to give the galaxy six more months of peace. And ignorance.

So when the Alliance sent the message out, she knew them to be telling the truth. Reconvening the meeting with Kharaz just two hours after she had sent him away in disgrace, the councillor accepted his plea, allowing the first of hundreds of refugee ships to disgorge thousands of batarian families onto the station, women and children making the vast majority of those fleeing the carnage in their own space. When she saw the news reporters questioning the arrival of so many batarians, she knew her decision would prove problematic. Already Donnel Udina, the hideous replacement for David Anderson, was questioning her decision relentlessly, displaying the typical bigotry that the Alliance extended to their equally-bigoted batarian counterparts. Sparatus agreed with the human, asking why when the security services for the Citadel were already under strength across the entire station. Only Valern extended compassion to the batarians, but that was just on the surface - he stalwartly refused them access beyond the docks and into the areas of the station where they could be properly treated and housed. It took a monumental argument in the chambers to force her colleagues to allow doctors and charities the access to help the refugees. Entire docks were turned over to use for refugee families, housing hundreds at a time in squalor and filth, but safety under the watchful eyes of C-Sec officers.

The docks had been barely suitable for the first families to arrive at, poorly maintained by Citadel authorities at the best of times. Tevos had been forced to save time and give the role of organising reconstruction work for the facilities to Councillor Udina, but she had heard little from the human since. It worried her that the councillor was always focussing on aspects of the galaxy he couldn't control rather than smaller things that were taking place barely any distance from where his lavishly appointed office standing high above the Presidium.

"Councillor, is this a bad time?" The high-pitched voice of her attendant, Morila, wafted over to Tevos, snapping her out of her thoughts and turning the councillor's attention back to the matters that she was trying to desperately forget.

"No, Morila. What is it? And please, I would prefer to be addressed as Tevos, not by a title I do not feel entitled to right now."

"Of course. I have news, councillor. I mean, Tevos." The councillor motioned towards the sofa set up in the middle of the room, allowing her to relax after long hours of tedious meetings and endless signing of paperwork. As the councillor relaxed, finding herself being embraced by the warm confines of the sofa's corner, Morila sat nervously, deliberately distancing herself from her employer, her posture rigid and upright.

"What news do you bring? Have the other councillors begun organising the emergency construction teams for the refugee docks yet?"

"No councillor. It is about Earth." The last words caused Tevos to freeze in place, her vision narrowing so she could only focus on the sofa and the nervous asari sitting at the far end of it. Her heart began beating, faster and harder against her chest. A small shiver ran up her spine, sweat beginning to rise up amongst the folds on the back of her neck. "A few minutes ago, Councillor Udina and Ambassador Osoba lost all direct contact with Arcturus Station. Their emergency channels are not being answered, and transmissions from the Sol system have been dramatically cut."

"But-"

"There is more, Councillor. The Alliance has sent another coded transmission, this time from the SSV Orizaba, a dreadnought with their Fifth Fleet. It reads two words: Sabre One." Tevos blanked out for a brief moment. Sabre One, words that caused her heart to almost skip a beat in panic. Sabre, Alliance code for an attack on a human-settled world. One, the Alliance designation for Terra, Earth. It could only mean one thing. "Alliance vessels have been sighted pouring through relays into salarian space and the Serpent Nebula, many of them critically damaged and seeking immediate repairs. There has been no word from two of the seven Alliance Fleets, the Second and the Fourth, while the First fleet has taken very heavy casualties."

Though Morila was still recalling the information she was told to pass onto her, Tevos' brain ignored the words being spoken to her after she had mentioned the arrival of Alliance ships into salarian space. The universe shrank around the councillor, her brain ignoring what was potentially vital information and focussing on one thing alone.

"_Kori_." The word was whispered softly, quiet enough so that only Tevos could hear what she was saying. Morila caught the sound of a word, but it was too quiet for her to understand.

"What was that, councillor?"

"Goddess, no." Tevos' lower lip began trembling, her hands began shaking, the vibrations initially small but rapidly overriding the composure she usually covered her emotions with when in meetings. "What happened to the first fleet?"

"The first fleet has taken casualties of over fifty-five percent, councillor. The flagship of that fleet, the SSV Everest was not among the vessels reported to have arrived in the Annos Basin, while the surviving captains report that a portion of the fleet was sacrificed to save any remaining vessels."

"The Everest? The dreadnought?"

"Yes councillor." A solitary tear dropped from Tevos' left eye, further beads of moisture quickly being blinked away before they could fall as well. Morila leaned forward, but was waved away by the councillor, who pushed herself up and stumbled over to her desk, resting her hands on the carved wooden surface before slumping into the chair behind it, head buried in her hands. A small, nearly inaudible cry could be heard, piercing through the air like a bullet, suddenly developing into a wail of anguish and terror. Morila darted forward, placing a hand on the councillor's shoulder, but it was forced off by a violent twist. Unsure of what to do, the maiden retreated, still clutching the datapad with the report she had just delivered against her chest. "Was there someone you know with the Alliance? Someone on the Everest?"

Tevos fought back the sobs and tears, lifting her head up to stare at Morila with blood-shot eyes, the normally golden hue interwoven with violet. "Yes. A Lieutenant, serving on the Everest. He, I-" When the tears returned, cutting the councillor off from the words she needed to say, Morila placed her hand back on the councillor's back, this time the reassuring gesture being accepted by the older asari in front of her.

"Councillor, it is okay. This day would always have come. I only hope your bondmate has found peace with-"

"He is not my bondmate. His name is Staff Lieutenant Peter Naylor, and he is my _son._"

* * *

**A/N:** I appreciate people being honest with me – was that any good for a first chapter?

I hope the whole premise of Naylor and Tevos having a small shared history isn't ridiculous to some people, but to those that it is, I won't be explaining it for a good couple of chapters. It's only the start of a story, and who would reveal all the fun stuff in the first chapter anyway? Plus Tevos is a really hard character to write for, especially when trying to create from scratch the character behind what we see in the Council Chambers. And for the record, the word 'kori' is the phonetic Greek spelling for daughter… apparently. I'll be using a number of Greek phonetics to represent some of the older words that aren't a part of the standard asari language – you thank PMC65's use of Greek in The Shepherdess and the Questing Beast for that idea. I take no credit.

I'll more than likely be relentlessly posting all the chapters I've written for the next few weeks so that I actually make an effort to keep the pace of writing up, so keep an eye out for the next chapter at some point down the line. In the mean time, please leave reviews, and happy reading!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Some of the things in Mass Effect 3 didn't make much sense, like Cortez and Traynor appearing out of the blue before Palaven when they were clearly part of the retrofit team for the Normandy. Thus they get to make an appearance before they do in the game, as it makes a little more sense. Also, a note on the dates that I put at the start of most of the sections in the story: I'm quite pernickety, and so all those dates are just my way of making everything fall into place in terms of when in the timeline everything happens. It also gives my characters a chance to celebrate Christmas...

* * *

**Day Three. Jupiter orbit, Sol System, Local Cluster**

It had been three days since the Normandy had escaped from Earth. Three days spent hiding in the solar system, trying to evade the Reaper ships combing the system, and picking up escape pods from the annihilated First and Fourth Fleets during breaks in the patrols of Reaper ships combing the system for survivors. Shepard stood behind Joker's flight seat, keeping a watchful eye on the pilot's activities while they made their way through another search pattern close to the gas giant of Jupiter. Behind her worked Specialist Cleveland on the ship's navigation – she hadn't been trained in any particular roles as a crewmember on a ship, but Shepard had faith in her and the young marine had yet to disappoint.

"Commander, we've found another pod, just inside Jupiter's gravity well."

"Intact? Any life signs?"

"It's intact, but we can't tell from this far out, Commander. We need to pick it up and bring it onboard before we can be sure."

"Thank you, Specialist. Joker, take us towards Jupiter. There's another intact escape pod that we can pick up from there." Commander Jane Shepard turned and walked from the bridge, heading down into the CIC to where the rest of the crew stood working. Specialist Traynor, one of the crew members working on the Normandy when it had begun its violent escape from Earth, stood in what had been Yeoman Chambers' station during Shepard's war against the Collectors, monitoring any additional communication inside the system. Her help had been invaluable in the past three days, allowing the Normandy a chance to rebuild her skeleton crew from scratch. Cleveland, a biotic adept, was one of the three marines they had picked up from escape pods and from the protective cells inside disabled vessels. She and two others, Corporal Atkins and Private Wallace, were the beginnings of a marine team that could support Shepard on ground missions. Lieutenant Vega, a hulk of a marine who had been present during Shepard's incarceration, led them, but his additional role as the man maintaining the armoury was proving troublesome while trying to form the marines into a cohesive fighting unit. To add to the problem, Vega also was assigned as a part of Shepard's team, and so that left only Atkins, to lead the ground team while Shepard's squad was in the field.

"Commander."

"Yes, Traynor?"

"We're approaching the escape pod, but I'm not reading any communications from inside it. Initial readings show it to be from the dreadnought SSV Everest, which was destroyed with the First Fleet on Day Zero. I still cannot pick up any life signs, and its onboard oxygen supply is low based off of what we can tell."

"Thank you, Specialist. Have the hangar bay prepare for pick up, and signal Lieutenant-Commander Williams to make her way down there."

"Of course, Commander."

"Has there been any luck with our communications yet? Can we make contact with Hackett or any of the surviving Admirals yet?"

"Yes, I think so, Commander. The ship's VI, EDI, has been conducting repairs and tests on the QEC; she reports that it should be usable to contact the SSV Orizaba via the primary QEC connection."

"Excellent. I will be in the Communications Room if needed."

* * *

Lieutenant-Commander Ashley Williams strode out of the elevator onto the hangar bay, the half a dozen crew members there preparing for the retrieval of another escape pod, the tenth one in three days. An atmospheric barrier was raised beyond the entrance to the hangar bay, protecting the crew inside from the cold vacuum of space outside. The display in front of her highlighted the approach the Normandy was making, dotted lines showing where the frigate needed to be placed to successfully recover the pod.

"Joker, we're coming in too far to the left. Adjust our course by a few degrees to port." Joker applied a very slight course correction, the Normandy edging to the left by a few degrees, before straightening out and continuing towards the pod, the pilot expertly lining the vessel up so that the pod began to pass effortlessly through the barrier and into the hangar bay.

Williams pointed to the crew member responsible for the extendable service crane that would capture the pod before it crashed to the deck thanks to the Normandy's inbuilt gravity. Despite the three days onboard, she had barely had a chance to know any of the names of the crew that manned the stations around them. She only knew Lieutenant Cortez, and that was because the pair had spent a good deal of time working to supply the crew with the right kit for their jobs. "Alright. Hit it, grab the pod." The arm extended out towards the pod, grabbing it before it could smash into the floor of the hangar. Gently, the crew member brought it down to rest on the floor of the bay; placing it in the groove cut for the Kodiak shuttles and withdrawing the arm back away into its storage above the single Kodiak stored in the hangar.

Four crew members approached the pod, two carrying first aid gear and the others with cutting tools, in case the occupants were trapped inside. On a signal from Williams, the pod's external console was brought online, commands from the Normandy's systems overriding the locking mechanism on the armoured shutters sealing it closed. Williams made her own way towards the pod, triggering the holographic interface to open the shutters, the thick metal sheets rumbling open. Inside sat five helmeted soldiers in the flight seats, a sixth man tied down on the floor, medical equipment attached to the pads on his armour. A seventh crew member, without armour, sat in the last remaining escape pod, breathing from a regulated oxygen mask. The man closest to the entrance snapped his head, peering straight at Williams as his hands triggered the release on the flight seat. Pushing the metal bar above his shoulders, the marine ducked out of the entrance to the pod, a flash of red on his right arm and shoulder betraying his position and status within the Alliance. The remaining soldiers, all marines from the armour they wore, followed suit, the rear being brought up by the serviceman without the armour. As each man stepped from the pod, the personnel with medical equipment ran scans with their omni-tools, checking each marine for injuries. The marine with the red stripe pointed them towards the restrained soldier, the medics rushing off to extract him from the pod.

Williams approached the red-striped marine, who snapped a smart salute when he noticed her approach. Removing his helmet, the marine's distinctly average-looking face peered out, eyes slightly bloodshot from staring at his helmet's HUD for the past three days. "Staff Lieutenant Naylor, ma'am, reporting for duty. Thanks for the rescue."

"No worries, Lieutenant. I'm Lieutenant-Commander Williams, and welcome to the SSV Normandy SR-2."

"The Normandy? As in the stealth frigate?"

"The very one. Commander Shepard's in charge. She's up in the communications room on the CIC deck. You're an N7, correct?"

"Aye, ma'am. Part of the Paladin stream, so I'm a sentinel. At least, one with no biotics."

"I see. And the rest of your group?"

"There's Sergeant Roberts, a biotic sentinel, and Corporal Clarke, a Vanguard, who were part of my marine platoon, and Privates Westmoreland and Campbell, both members of the Everest's marine guard. There's also Serviceman Mira, who's a navigator by trade."

"Alright. Listen, we need people to build up a marine team. I'd like to stick your two, as well as you, with them for now. You're relieving command from Lieutenant James Vega. The two privates can join your team if you need them, but they may be reassigned if needed. Report to deck two and Commander Shepard, Lieutenant. Elevator's behind us. Dismissed."

"Aye aye, ma'am." Naylor saluted, before he began making his way towards the elevator, leaving Williams to debrief the five remaining members of the pod in turn. Roberts and Clarke both took the assignment to the marine team well, while Westmoreland and Campbell found themselves being assigned to guard duty on the combat deck, protecting the way towards the sensitive War Room behind the CIC. Westmoreland took this rather well, Campbell wishing for action but accepting her posting as a marine should. Williams finished by talking to Mira, who could take over from the marine currently doubling up for the ship's navigator. With the necessary assignments assigned, Williams notified Shepard of the additions to their crew.

Naylor reached the elevator, calling it down to take him up to deck two. A few seconds of waiting passed, but when the doors opened, Naylor automatically snapped to attention, throwing a quick salute to the figure exiting the elevator car as did the five others in the escape pod with him.

"At ease, N7. You salute me like that once more, or call me ma'am, and I swear I will toss your sorry arse out of the nearest airlock. It's Commander or Shepard, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am. I mean Commander. Staff Lieutenant Naylor reporting for duty."

"At ease, Staff Lieutenant. You're my new ground team commander, correct? What do you specialise in?"

"Aye, commander. I'm a Paladin sentinel, so no biotics, but I've never needed them." Shepard nodded at this, motioning the lieutenant towards the armour and weapon lockers. She grabbed the set of standard N7 armour from her locker, travelling over to the weapons desks while pulling off her dress blue overcoat.

"Lieutenant, I know you've only been deckside for a few minutes, but I need you to pick two men and deploy down to Mars with my squad. We'll brief you on the Kodiak down to the planet. You'll also be introduced to Lieutenant Cortez. He's our shuttle pilot."

"Aye, aye, commander. I'll take Roberts and Clarke. They're two marines from my platoon. All we need are some more thermal clips and new oxygen supplies."

"Right ho. There should be some in one of the open supply cases. You've got five before we take off." Shepard began changing into her armour as Naylor walked over to his marines. Roberts and Clarke had been told by Williams that they were to deploy a few minutes ago, and were already loading themselves up with thermal clips from the salvaged supplies that had been picked up by the Normandy. Quickly grabbing enough thermal clips for his Eagle heavy pistol, as well as his Vindicator battle rifle, the Lieutenant started searching through the supply crates for the oxygen tanks that were compatible with his Inferno suit of armour. Roberts passed him a pair of the oxygen tanks that she had already found with Cortez' help, before attaching oxygen tanks to her own armour and locking her own helmet into place. Clarke meanwhile had already completed his own checks and was already boarding the Kodiak, joining Ashley and Vega in the crew compartment and bolting himself into a flight seat. Shepard was the last in, rocking up after Naylor and Roberts had taken their seats, and nodded to Cortez. The mission was on, and there was no time to lose from the perspective of the Spectre.

* * *

**Day Three. Mars Archives, Sol System, Local Cluster**

"Okay. Admiral Hackett has ordered us to rendezvous with a scientist at the Mars Archives. Her name is Liara T'Soni, and she's an asari expert on the Protheans. Ashley, James and myself will go in from the main landing pad at the facility and try and locate her from the. Sergeant Roberts and Corporal Clarke, I want you two to stay with Cortez in the shuttle. Keep an exit for us open in case anyone tries to attack the place. We've lost contact with the station, but that is to be expected given the damage to communications infrastructure that the Reapers have done, so we're not sure whether the staff there know that we're arriving."

"Hey Commander, what about me?"

"Sorry, Naylor. I forgot about you there. I want you with my team, but if there is trouble at the facility, I want you to find a back door entrance and get to Doctor T'Soni as quickly as you can. Our ETA is to the landing pad is two minutes. Cortez, do we have any updates?"

"Just the one, commander. I'm within range of the Archives for standard communication, but I'm receiving nothing from the base. Whatever is happening down there, it isn't good."

"Damn. Any signs of Reaper activity on the planet?"

"Not even in Lowell City, Commander. I'm coming over the archives now with everything broadcasting our approach, but there's no sign of any Alliance welcome party. The entire base is basically silent."

"Alright. Naylor, you're up. We're deploying you in via a back door to the facility. Find T'Soni, get her out." The Kodiak's door opened, the marines inside being pulled slightly towards the open door as the oxygen inside was suddenly sucked out into nothingness. As the passenger compartment was opened to the Red Planet's atmosphere, Naylor's oxygen supply kicked in, a steady stream of air beginning to flow around his helmet as he concentrated on regulating his breathing before deploying. The Kodiak pulled low towards the roof of the facility, slowing down to give Naylor a chance to safely jump out of the compartment, rolling as he hit the rood to break his low-gravity fall. As he picked himself up, his eyes were drawn to a massive cloud approaching the archives. Lightning periodically lit up the cloud of red dust, the storm rolling ever forward over everything in its path.

"Shepard, I'm on the ground. You have a massive sandstorm coming in towards the base. No idea on how long we have until it arrives, but when it hits, it will be big."

"Thanks for that, Lieutenant. We believe Dr T'Soni is in the main office section of the facility. You're right above them now. A little tip, they don't like hull breaches." Shepard cut the radio channel as the Lieutenant proceeded towards the airlock into the facility, beginning the vital procedure that would allow him to enter into the atmosphere of the facility's interior. As the pressure regulation finished, the inner door opened, Naylor being greeted by a pair of barrels belonging to the standard-issue M-8 Avenger assault rifles.

One of the security guards shouted at the top of his voice, the sound being amplified by his helmet's own speaker systems. "Hands where I can see them!" Naylor shrugged, showing his hands were clear and that his weapons were all still attached to his back.

"Lieutenant Naylor. I'm assigned to the SSV Normandy. I'm here for a Doctor Liara T'Soni; she's a scientist working on the archives."

"Do you have authorisation?" Naylor's omni-tool lit up, the typed order that Shepard had received from Admiral Hackett checking out with the security guards. After a brief explanation about safety procedures, done on the fly as they walked, the Lieutenant was taken by the two guards into the depths of the facility, past hundreds of offices and work stations all filled with some of the brightest minds in humanity and the Alliance. Where Naylor would have expected the place to be filled with people hurriedly talking like a pack of salarians, the extreme circumstances following the invasion of the Reapers had put everyone on edge. Guards were posted at every major chokepoint within the facility, prepared to lock the station down at a moment's notice if a Reaper was to arrive on the planet. So far, the synthetics had ignored Mars, focussing on Earth instead, but the Alliance was unable to make good the break, as every ship capable of evacuating civilians was either lying in a variety of pieces in space or fleeing as fast as possible from Alliance-controlled space.

As the guards rounded a corner, the station shook for a single time, as if an earthquake tremor had passed through the area. To the guards it seemed nothing, but to the Alliance marine walking behind them, it felt like it was something worrying. As the trio made their way towards the offices inside the archives, another tremor rocked the facility, this time the guards and scientists all pausing as the vibrations subsided.

"Where is Doctor T'Soni, Sergeant?"

"Erm… shit! She's in Office 032, just down the hall. Crap, Jenkinson, we need to get to the security office, now!" The guard sergeant pointed through another checkpoint, the guards there pulling rifles from a hidden compartment within the wall. The lights in the facility turned red, a visual alarm quickly spreading throughout the facility. Naylor began running down the hallway, passing through two checkpoints, the guards there too preoccupied in preparing for whatever was causing the vibrations to stop him. The mission, and thus reaching T'Soni, was paramount, but the scientists here were not military-trained. If the base was attacked, they would be caught in the crossfire, and would be at huge risk if they couldn't be evacuated by the security personnel in time.

"049… 048… 047… 046… damn it, this is taking too long!" Naylor shouted into the mask of his helmet, speakers deactivated, as he barrelled past another checkpoint, the guards there hastily trying to lock down the corridor he had just been charging down. The lights in the station began to flicker, a warning ringing out over the speakers when they returned to full brightness a second later. The computer announcement was warning of intruders inside the station. Naylor drew his N7-issued Eagle heavy pistol, checking the thermal clip inside it before activating the armour-piercing ammunition modification he preferred to use. "035… 034… 033… 032!" More doors passed as he finally reached the supposed office of Liara T'Soni, the open/close hologram on the door still a bright green. The guards were yet to lock this section down, giving Naylor a few seconds to get the doctor and leave. He hit the hologram, the hologram blinking for a few seconds before opening into the office, and opening to another gun barrel quickly being pressed against the forehead of his helmet. "Not again."

"Who. Are. You?" The gun was an M-6 Carnifex, a heavy pistol favoured by mercenary leaders and soldiers in close combat situations. If it was fired at this range, he was guaranteed to be killed instantly. The person behind it was asari, as expected, lacking any distinctive facial markings bar thin black lines covering where a human would have eyebrows. She was definitely a "young" asari, maybe two to three hundred years old by Naylor's guess, but the details weren't important at that point.

"I'm Staff Lieutenant Naylor, N7, with the SSV Normandy, Doctor T'Soni. I'm here to get you out and get you to a rendezvous with Commander Shepard."

"What? What about Shepard, where is she?"

"She was deploying planet side last time I checked. I know you have no reason to trust me, but we have no time. Intruders are in the Archives as we speak."

"Goddess above! Let me get what research I have." The asari lowered the pistol, running back to her desk and collecting as many datapads as she could from the mess covering her own desks. She pointed Naylor to a marine-issue seabag, relentlessly passing the datapads to him as he tried to carefully place them inside. By the time he was finished, Liara was quickly downloading every scrap of data from her terminal onto her omni-tool and into any device that could store data. Another tremor, this time much more violent, shook the entire area, the sounds of an explosion and shouts following behind the vibrations. Naylor shouldered the seabag, leaning out of the office's door to see what was going on.

Three white-armoured troopers ran through the nearest security door, periodically opening office doors and filling the interior with gunfire and grenades. The screams of the unlucky scientists caught in their path washed down the hallway. One of the troopers snapped round, seeing Naylor's helmet flash in the light as he dived back into the office. Bullets sparked on the walls of the facility as two of the three ran towards him, firing as they went, only to be blocked as the door slammed shut in front of them as Naylor's omni-tool bypassed the security on the door and locked it down tight. Behind her desk, Liara was finally finishing downloading everything, but she noticed that Naylor was locking the door, the only way in or out of the room.

"What are you doing? We're now trapped inside here!"

"The vents!"

"You have to be joking! I'm not going in there; it's far too small for the two of us!" Naylor ran towards the air conditioning vent, pulling the grille off despite the asari's complaints.

"You go first, I'll be following! Try making it towards the landing pad, that's where Shepard was due to land at!" Silently protesting, Liara used Naylor's hands to boost herself into the ventilation shaft, turning on the spot to give a hand to the Lieutenant as he pulled himself up. The pair began clambering through the vents, oblivious to the peril of the remaining scientists below them. A quick tap to Liara's leg, and she stopped. The same clanging noises that they had been making seconds before were being heard behind them, from where the entrance to the ventilation shaft in Liara's office was. Naylor caught a flash of white in the reflection around the corner of the vents. "They're behind us. Go! GO!"

Liara and Naylor bolted through the shaft, pulling themselves along as quickly as they were able. As they slowed down before they turned another corner, the white-armoured troopers found themselves with a direct line of sight to the pair of them. Bullets sliced through the vent, smashing into Naylor's kinetic barriers, being violently slapped away into the walls. Liara pulled herself around the turn, Naylor following as he blind fired his Eagle towards the troopers, aiming to suppress them rather than kill. The firing relented, allowing Liara and Naylor a chance to increase the distance between them and the troopers.

"Where the hell is the asari?" The distorted voice of the troopers carried through from the corridors below the vents. Liara stole glances at the scene below through grates in the bottom of the vent shaft, but recoiled when she saw the mangled corpses of Alliance guards and scientists scattered around in crimson pools of their own blood.

"She wasn't in her office. They reckon she escaped into the vents. There's also the rumour of an N7 in the facility."

"Tell Delta Team to find her. If there is an N7 here, they'll be on their own. We can ignore that one for now."

"But what if it's Shepard? She's N7."

"Shepard's either dead on Earth or fighting on Earth. You're dismissed." Liara moved over the troopers silently, gasping slightly as she saw the symbol on their shoulder pads.

"Doctor, what is it?"

"Cerberus." The word meant little to Naylor, aside from an old, ancient Greek myth concerning a three-headed dog and the gates of hell. Hearing sounds of movement resuming in the vents behind them, Naylor and Liara resumed their escape towards the landing pad. Another flash of white ahead of them, and two Cerberus troopers crawled into view a dozen or so yards down from a T-junction in the vents. The troopers were blocking the path that Liara and Naylor wanted to take, and being unable to pass them without a confrontation, Liara froze. Naylor took the initiative, almost throwing her down the other vent and activating his omni-shield. The shield was too big to fit inside the vent, but the superheated surface cut straight through the metal edge of the shaft. Pulling himself a few feet forwards toward the junction, he activated the shield again, cutting a massive gap into the ventilation shaft and blocking it off from the troopers pursuing them.

"Lieutenant!" Liara's one word cry alerted Naylor to another problem – to repeat what he had done for the other two troopers, Naylor would need a few more minutes. And by that time, the two Cerberus operatives would be on top of him. "Hurry! Hurry!" The Lieutenant pulled himself along as quickly as the confined space allowed, propelling himself along the fork in the T-junction by planting his feet against the metal wall and pushing off. The two crawled onwards for another few minutes, trying to shake the Cerberus troopers behind them, but their advantage was eroded when Liara took a long turn, almost running into the fan at the end of the vent, having to double back towards their pursuers.

"Doctor, look ahead and to the right! There's a grille!" The asari crawled forwards, more bullets striking the metal around them as she started kicking the metal grating, getting nowhere against the reinforced metal rivets holding it in place. With a single cry, she slammed her foot onto the grate, the rivets giving up and the metal falling away from where it had been held in place. "Get going!" Taking the bag with her research, Liara ducked out of the vent, jumping down onto a stack of crates below the exit and using her biotics to steady her fall. Naylor pulled himself out backwards, sliding out at speed and skidding off of the crates. He barely stopped in time, rolling over as Liara jumped down onto the floor. The troopers made it to the end of the vent, one drawing his M-96 Mattock rifle and aiming it at Naylor's head. Were it not for the asari below him, Naylor's next move would have been an involuntary spasm as his body was hit by a high-velocity bullet.

A singularity erupted into existence in front of the trooper as he tightened the finger he placed around the trigger, drawing the trooper and his comrade out of the vent and into the gravity well of the biotic talent. Liara looked up at the Lieutenant, who drew his Eagle, sighting it on the two troopers and sending a round into the chest of the two of them. The bodies fell to the floor, Liara walking over and firing two shots into their heads as they lay incapacitated on the floor. Naylor vaulted off of the crates, rolling as he hit the floor. Seeing the discarded M-96, he attached the weapon to one of the unused hardpoints on the back of his armour, the weapon compacting down to its reduced size as soon as it was held in place by the armour. Three figures walked round past a rover, one raising his rifle, pointing it at the pair before a second forced the barrel towards the floor. "Easy, Vega. She's with us."

"Shepard! Thank the Goddess you're alive!"

"Liara, good to see you."

"I was worried when the reports stopped coming in from Earth. They hit the planet hard?" Shepard nodded, removing her helmet and instructing Vega and Ashley to do the same.

"It was hard to leave with everything going on." Ashley's voice carried the extreme weight of emotion.

"Liara, just exactly how did you end up in the vents? Naylor here was _told_ to rendezvous with us at the landing pad. When he didn't show, we moved here."

"Staff Lieutenant Naylor proved very helpful."

"We made our way into the vents when Cerberus broke into the area. It was the only way to make it out of the offices without a fight on our hands. But thankfully we have most of Doctor T'Soni's research with us." Emphasising his point, Naylor lifted the shoulder bag full of datapads, the tablets clinking against each other as they were raised and lowered.

"Hallelujah, we finally have some answers!"

"Easy James, it may not be as much as you hope for. Liara, what do you have?"

"I have something – plans for a prothean device, one that could possibly wipe out the Reapers. Well, they are in the Prothean Archives."

"How did you find them?"

"Process of elimination, mixed with a lot of desperation." Liara walked towards the window overlooking the archive building, towering above the mine that the archives had originally been found in. Shepard followed, Naylor, Ashley and Vega following behind the Commander. "When you destroyed the Alpha relay, you bought us some time while the Reapers travelled through FTL to the Kite's Nest. But you were under investigation by the Alliance, and I knew that I had to do something. Hackett knew it too, asking me to use my experience as an archaeologist and information broker to find a way to stop the Reapers. Thankfully, Hackett got me access here and kept me updated on your status.

"In any case, my work paid off. The Archives are full of data that the Alliance hasn't had a chance to analyse yet, an overwhelming amount." Liara tried to suppress a smile. "I wish I had had a chance to do something like this earlier in my life."

"Still the scientist then." Shepard smiled, placing a hand on the asari's shoulder. "I'll guess I'll believe all this when I see it. Where do we find the plans for the weapon?" Liara looked out at the archives, leaning against the window sill in silence. "_Where, _Liara?" The tone of Shepard's question wasn't positive; the inflection the commander used sounding more like a mother talking to her misbehaving child than one used between old friends. Liara's response further fuelled this, her head dropping slightly to stare at Shepard's boots and her tone becoming more submissive, like that of the misbehaving child.

"In the archives, across the main tramway. And right through Cerberus's forces."

* * *

Naylor and Liara hung at the back of the group, checking for any Cerberus stragglers as Shepard led Vega and Ashley through towards the pedway. Shepard had told Cortez in the Kodiak, along with Roberts and Clarke to cover any exits if Cerberus reached the archives first. But the sandstorm was already hampering communications with the Flight Lieutenant, and Naylor knew that it would be but a matter of minutes before they lost contact completely. The Paladin had his Eagle heavy pistol drawn in his right hand, and his left arm ready to deploy an omni-shield at barely a mental impulse. Liara was looking about with her Carnifex, a biotic barrier shimmering around her as she moved. The mood in the group was tense, but Vega and Shepard were trying to break it with a conversation that neither of the two at the back paid attention to.

"Doctor, why do you think Cerberus is here at the Archives? They were hell bent on catching us when we bolted the first time."

"I think that they are here for what you and Shepard are here for, Lieutenant. A way to stop the Reapers."

"But why now? Why here?"

"The Protheans came close to stopping the Reapers. From what I have found out, they had plans to destroy them using this weapon, but they ran out of time. For what reason, I do not yet know." Liara snapped her pistol up at the sound of a sudden drop of a thermal clip, staring intently as Vega looked sheepishly at the rest of the group, taking up the offended item. "I would guess that anything powerful enough to destroy the Reapers just might be something Cerberus would be interested in."

"I take it that's bad, right?"

"Do you have much experience with Cerberus, Lieutenant?"

"Other than an old bit of classical mythology, no. I doubt I want to really deal with them after this anyway." Liara laughed, but her enjoyment was short lived. Spying something ahead of her, she paused. Something was wrong, very wrong.

"That airlock is not supposed to be open."

* * *

"Shepard! The data is being erased!" The Illusive Man's hologram dissipated with a smirk, the portable QEC dropping to the floor and exploding in a cloud of sparks and smoke. Liara's hurried typing on the archive's main interface did little to break the tension that was boiling within the room. Someone or something else was there, in the room, and was single-handedly hampering the efforts of the five to recover the blueprints for Liara's weapon.

"Where from?"

"It's local!"

Shepard drew her Katana, frantically looking around the room for the source of their latest problem. "James, Naylor, keep your eyes out for anyone siphoning data. Ashley, the same!" Naylor was on guard at the door to the archives, just beyond the tram station where the last of the Cerberus forces had been killed where they stood. Since then, they had made their way into the archives, and Liara had been frantically working to locate the information she wanted. As it was turning out, that information was proving hard to find.

"Hands where I can see them!" Ashley's shout came from one of the booths on the outer ring of the chamber, the locations for one of the master terminals. Naylor briefly saw the figure the Lieutenant-Commander was hollering at – a female dressed in a white bodysuit and with unnatural looking hair covering her neck and jaw line. The unknown person suddenly kicked out at Williams' chest, winding her, before slamming an electrically-charged omni-blade into the console she had been siphoning the data from. The action destabilised the power matrix for the archives, the once-green glow it emitted now disappearing altogether and prompting a yelp of surprise from Liara, the asari frantically trying to restart the archives. The white figure began running, straight towards Naylor as Shepard and James began firing warning shots at her.

Naylor primed his omni-shield, swinging around and shunting it straight towards her torso, but the figure rolled out of the way and delivered a lightning-quick combination of kicks and punches, slamming the Lieutenant's head back against the nearest wall with a particularly vicious uppercut. Dazed and slumped on the floor, he could only watch as Shepard, Ashley and James ran past him, firing as they went and concentrating solely on the escapee instead of him. The dizziness also stopped Naylor from hearing Shepard order Liara to check on him, the asari running over and looking for visible injuries, and checking for signs of concussion or damage.

"Lieutenant, how many fingers am I holding up?" Naylor's vision swam back into clarity as the asari raised her index and middle fingers, as well as extending her thumb.

"Ah, damn it, two, not including your thumb! I'm fine, let's go!" Liara backed away and nodded, extending a hand for Naylor to pull himself up with before taking off after the chasing group, Naylor following hot on her heels. The chase had progressed up onto the roof of the facility, a large access hatch open and venting the atmosphere. Quickly climbing up the access ladder, both Liara and Naylor watched as a white-painted Cerberus Kodiak flew into view, door open to reveal a trio of assault troopers firing down on the running form of Shepard below them. Naylor's hand immediately went to the release switch for his pistol, but he realised that, thanks to the shuttle's kinetic barriers, were he to try to fire the rounds would be slapped away before they could reach their target. The pair ran after the shuttle, Shepard far ahead and climbing up another ladder onto a raised section of the roof. The female they were chasing was already far ahead of the Spectre, and Liara stopped as she saw the figure quickly make the jump from the raised section of the roof ahead of them towards the open door to the shuttle, which took off towards orbit as soon as she was aboard. Shepard cried out over the communications, but the dust storm, relentless in its advance towards the archives, was disrupting the communications that they were sending out.

"Joker? Cortez? Anyone?" Shepard knew that without help cries were answered when a blur suddenly tore through the sky, descending at rapid speed towards the rising Cerberus Kodiak. An almighty crash could be heard echoing around the archive buildings as an escape pod smashed into the top of the Kodiak, crumpling the top of the vehicle's hull beneath it, burning out the engines and flinging it down to the roof in front of Shepard in a ball of flames. James, Ashley and Shepard had been flung to the ground by the impact, only recovering as the Normandy hove into view through the dust storm above them. Ashley hauled James to his feet, quickly turning around as the main door to the Cerberus Kodiak shuddered under the force of an impact. Another impact and it broke free, smashing into Williams and knocking her off the raised section of roof, the Lieutenant-Commander tumbling the twenty or so feet down from where she had been standing to the level where Naylor and Liara were staring dumfounded at the events ahead of them. The distinctive bark of a shotgun could be heard numerous times in rapid succession from the roof ahead of them, followed by a string of mild curses.

"Naylor, Liara, get Ashley on board. We've got the synthetic. We need to leave!" Liara and Naylor ran over to the immobile form of Ashley Williams, both gently lifting the body between them and moving it carefully over to where the Normandy was descending to, taking the utmost care to avoid dropping Ashley's body or moving it too violently. As Liara stepped gingerly onto the lowered boarding ramp of the frigate, she looked up at Naylor as he did so.

"What synthetic?"

* * *

**A/N:** Cortez would never crash a shuttle like Vega does, so I changed that. Mechanics and gravitational fields are such wonderful things...

This originally started as one of the shortest chapters in the fifteen chapters that I had pre-written, but after editing it, it somehow reached its current length of nearly seven thousand words. I've never written a chapter that long. Ever. The longest thing I've written so far, barring this, was a chapter on the party in the Citadel DLC, and that was mainly all the dialogue from all the conversations that you get during the 'mission'...


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **I told myself when I started uploading this that I mustn't fall behind on uploading chapters, especially when I said that I would be relentless. A week into uploading the story, and I've already put this particular chapter back four days. My only excuse is this: have you seen the weather in the UK at the moment? Like, seriously, it's damn good. And then there's the tennis. One does not simply work on writing when Andy Murray is playing at Wimbledon…

* * *

**Day Four. Citadel space station, Serpent Nebula**

Matriarch Lidanya strode quickly through the hallway, swiftly making her way towards the waiting maiden at the far end of the corridor, the person's face lightening slightly as she saw who was approaching. Morila had been thrown into her job in the deep end, being only recently accepted as Tevos' attendant. This was her first job off of Thessia. And she clearly was out of her league in the situation that she found herself in.

"Matriarch, thank the Goddess that you're here."

"I have been trying to get hold of the councillor for a number of days now, but it's like she's refusing to respond to anyone. What is going on?"

"I'm not sure. I believe that, right now, the councillor is going through what I can only describe as an emotional breakdown. She's hidden herself in there for the past three days, and any time that I have tried to get into there she's either screamed at me to leave or shown me the door with her biotics." Morila paused, looking around the corridor and lowering her voice. "I'm scared, Matriarch. Both for the councillor and myself. I've only been here a few weeks now, and I've never seen anything like this, not even on Thessia."

"Do not worry, Morila. But, I must ask, why didn't you call me earlier?"

"I didn't think it was necessary. I thought that I could handle it and-"

"You didn't think it was necessary to warn me of a possible emotional breakdown of the highest politician that our species has?" Lidanya let the silence be the answer to her question. Morila had much to learn, but she would need time to learn it in. "Go and take a break, Morila. I will try and see what I can do."

"Of course, Matriarch." Morila left with a polite bow, hurrying off away from what she perceived as the wrath of the teal matriarch now standing alone outside Tevos' office. Sighing, Lidanya politely rapped her knuckles on the cold frame of the metal door, something that she knew to be polite and unobtrusive from her days onboard the Destiny Ascension, where there were many places that an asari could try to find peace and seclusion away from her sisters. When there was no reply, she knocked again to the same lack of response. Seeing that the polite entry was getting nowhere, Lidanya steeled herself, pressing the hologram on the door and waiting for whatever would happen after the door opened.

"Councillor? Tevos, are you there?" Lidanya called out the councillor's name, softly but repeatedly as she crept her way through the office. Tevos was neither behind her desk nor on the couch where she preferred to rest for the remainder of the time. The balcony overlooking the Presidium was empty, and there was still no sign of the councillor in the small kitchenette that lay off the near side of the balcony. The only evidence of Tevos even being in the room was that the refrigerator, usually closed and containing enough food for an all-night shift in the office, was open and empty, the micro-VI inside having long ago given up its polite warnings that the inside temperature was too high to keep everything at optimal temperature. Quietly shutting the door, she noticed a red flash in the reflection on the polished metal surface, coming from the far corner of the office, a part shrouded in relative darkness and not visible when anyone enters the room.

Walking over, the Matriarch realised what the flash was – Tevos, Lidanya observed, lay in the corner, curled up into the deepest part like a baby asari in her mother's arms. It reminded Lidanya of her firstborn, Nelyna, now a young matron who was with the Armali Police Force on an exchange program on Earth, in the city of London before the outbreak of this latest war. It was then that the reason for what was happening with the councillor struck the matriarch, why Tevos had gone into the state she was in.

"Tevos. Goddess, my friend, what has happened to you?" Tevos' head poked up from the cradle of her own arms, eyes staring at the matriarch standing before her. The usual sparkling golden hue of her irises was dulled, the whites of her eyes now a deep purple, a condition the humans referred to as 'bloodshot', something they connected with tiredness and emotional distress. For Lidanya, though she saw through Tevos' eyes the same things, the subtle hints of her body language was what truly betrayed what she was going through – the councillor, who normally found herself on an equal standing with any matriarch, looked up at her as if Lidanya was her mother. The way her body reacted to Lidanya being present screamed that she was going through a long, very long period of distress, and for a councillor in her species' time of absolute need, that was not a good sign. Lidanya crouched down, reaching an arm out to Tevos' shoulder, using the touch to convey compassion and understanding. "What is wrong, Tevos? What tears you up like this?"

Closer now to the councillor, and Lidanya could see just how badly she was feeling. The purple of Tevos' cheeks was marked with dried tears, the shadows around her eyes profoundly more prominent as Lidanya brought the councillor out from the shadows of the corner and into the light of her office. The dress that she usually wore, a moderate ensemble, was wrinkled and torn even in places, the material practically ruined. "It's kori. Goddess, why did you have to take kori?" Even Tevos' voice was indicative of what she was feeling, the words coming out broken, rasping compared to the tone she would usually address with. A fresh round of tears ushered forth from the councillor, a low, almost inaudible wail following.

"Tevos, who is 'kori'?" Lidanya ran over to the desk, to where she knew that Tevos kept a secret bottle of Serrice Ice Brandy in a cooled tray at the bottom of her desk. It had been something the councillor had used on a number of occasions in the century and a half she had been in the job, and was most often something saved for times of celebration and joy. This time, it was the only thing to hand for Lidanya to cure the obviously sore throat that Tevos had. Pouring a small measure out into an ornate glass, the matriarch handed it to Tevos, who took it and carefully sipped at the contents.

"Kori," Tevos rasped, the effects of the brandy being felt immediately, "is m-my son."

Lidanya paused, confused. A part of her brain feared that the councillor's mind was not thinking correctly, though the rest of her brain urged her to press on with questioning. "Tevos, you can't have a son. You are asari."

"He isn't asari. His name is Peter Naylor." The name struck a chord with Lidanya – Naylor had served for a short few months on the Destiny Ascension as one of Tevos' bodyguards following being injured in the Battle of the Citadel in 2183. Ordinarily, being injured like he had been was no precursor to being on the Ascension, her medical bays specialised for treatment of mainly asari along with some facilities for the turian and salarian councillors, but his wounds were inflicted while he was protecting Tevos, whose commando bodyguards had been killed in the initial Geth assault. The Councillor had ensured that he had received treatment for his wounds on the ship, and later stayed on under the pretence of an exchange program with the asari military, a move endorsed by the Councillor herself.

Lidanya remembered some of the things that Naylor had done while on the dreadnought – when batarian mercenaries had tried to, through the threat of assassination, blackmail members of the Council while they were on the first length of their victory cruise through council space, seemingly over grievances to do with the 'favourable' treatment the Alliance received, Naylor had, as the human saying goes, stepped up to the plate and rallied the crew of the Ascension, eliminating the mercenaries before they had a chance to even get close to the councillors. It had earned him the gratitude of the asari military, and gained him an invitation to the Alliance's Interplanetary Combat Training academy. The same place Nelyna had been staying before the Reapers hit. But Lidanya was unsure of exactly how the human would come to mean so much to a councillor he had guarded, even despite the asari practice of employers pretty much being friends to their bodyguards, and vice versa.

"Tevos, I am still confused. How can Naylor be your son? And what does this word 'kori' mean anyway?"

"Kori is a very old word for daughter. Nobody uses that particular dialect anymore; at least that is what I can recall. When Peter became an N7, he was assigned to a role on Thessia. As he has no parents, he couldn't join the project he was due to be a part of thanks to the immigration form for living on Thessia. I felt sorry as I_, _with the help of Matriarch Aethyta, had helped fund that project, and proposed to him the idea of adoption under the ancient custom of yiothesia." Lidanya began recalling some of the lessons she had been taught by her own mother, a traditionalist, during her youth - yiothesia was a very old custom from before the asari achieved spaceflight, allowing asari from different parts of Thessia to freely adopt anyone of any age, rather than just children. It had fallen out of favour when the asari achieved space flight and made contact with the salarians, when the asari had felt the need to change their own social structures to better suit co-existence with their shorter-lived counterparts. But yiothesia had never been abolished, merely forgotten.

"I started using the word kori as something friendly, not serious. He liked the idea, and it became something that we just used. However, I took the idea too far, thinking as if I really was a mother. I've never really experienced anything like this." The councillor took another, longer sip from the glass of brandy. "Three days ago, Morila told me that the Reapers had hit Earth, and the Alliance had been routed. Peter was serving on one of the Alliance's dreadnoughts, the SSV Everest, when they attacked Earth. The Everest was reported to be destroyed by the Alliance. And I just lost it."

"Oh, Tevos, I'm sorry!" Lidanya pulled the councillor into a deep embrace, Tevos burying her head into the matriarch's shoulder as she let another cry out, this time far quieter, wracked with sobs. Lidanya barely heard the sound of the door opening, the soft footsteps of someone carefully treading inside. Slowly turning to look at the entrant, Lidanya was not surprised to see Morila trying her best not to make any noise. "What is it?" Lidanya's voice was more of a hiss than a question, eyes narrowing as she posed the question, not wanting to disturb Tevos while she was in this state.

"I'm sorry, Matriarch, but Councillor Udina is calling an urgent meeting in the Tower. He says that Commander Shepard will be there." Tevos' head popped up at the mention of the Spectre's name, eyes blinking rapidly.

"S-Shepard's alive?"

"Yes, councillor. She and Doctor T'Soni, a prothean scientist, will be present at the meeting. They say they have something that can deal with the Reapers." The change in the councillor was sudden, a quick wipe of the eyes and her entire demeanour was altered, the vulnerable, emotional asari replaced by a determined, calculating politician in a literal blink of an eye.

"Morila, can you find me something less… destroyed to wear?" Morila ducked out of the room, making as quickly as she could for the small apartment that Tevos owned close to her office. By the time she had gone, Tevos had pulled herself out of the corner and was smoothing down her dress as she made her way over to her desk. The silent patter of bare feet told Lidanya that the councillor was wearing no shoes.

"Tevos, you will need some shoes as well."

"Ah yes, of course, Lidanya. I should have some behind the desk." A pair of discarded high heels sat there, ones that matched the destroyed dress that the councillor was wearing. "Have you heard anything from our colonies? Are they safe?"

"Our biggest colonies are safe, yes, but that could change any day. We know more of the path the Reapers have taken when they entered the galaxy – they initially attacked the Kite's Nest and every Batarian-colonised world there first before ignoring all of humanity's colonies while en route to Earth and Arcturus Station. They now seem to be splitting into two pincers, one heading towards Palaven and turian space in the galactic south and the other staying in Alliance space. They obviously have intentions to invade the Attican Traverse to the north before attacking the Terminus Systems."

"They are bypassing the salarians?"

"I think we are assuming them to try taking out the major militaries, not giving them a chance to rebuild and prepare countermeasures. Though it is horrific, I am thankful that our worlds will be spared destruction for a short while." Morila ran back into the room, a neatly folded dress carried in her hands. As opposed to the normal red and white dress the councillor preferred, the dress Morila held was one she detested, a white dress with black sleeves and a solid black stripe down the middle. It felt negative, as if it was trying to cage in a person, but it would be apt – humanity had suffered greatly in the last three days, and a small part of her believed that it would be respectful to them. Pulling on the heels, Tevos stared at her reflection in the glass between the balcony and the rest of her office. "You look fine, Tevos. Come on, we need to be moving."

* * *

Tevos walked with purpose into the Council Chambers, striding up from the elevator with Morila beside her. Ahead, Councillors Valern, Sparatus and Udina were already arriving at their traditional positions at the end of the chambers, their assistants and aides standing with them and discussing the topics that would be coming up in the meeting. A C-Sec officer pointed them down the side path towards the rear of the chambers, past where Tevos' old offices. The rooms up there brought back bitter memories, the site where two of her oldest friends had died defending her, and where she first met someone who would become one of the people she cherished most.

"Councillor Tevos, I would not expect someone with the experience in this job like you to be as late as you are now." The tone that the human councillor used when she arrived was laced with condescension, his natural superiority complex coming out despite his comparative lack of experience in the whole political scene. Tevos had been Councillor longer than he had been alive.

"Udina, spare me the lecture." Tevos took up her spot behind the podium in the centre of the chamber, her longer experience in her position leading her to be the natural chair to the Council. Morila handed her the datapads with the main talking points for the meeting and the situation regarding the situations of the Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony. Another asari walked up to where she stood – Matriarch Vani Irissa, the asari ambassador to the Citadel and one of Tevos' least favourite people.

"Irissa, a pleasure to see you as always." Irissa had been Tevos' far older colleague before the Councillor had taken her position, both working as attendants to the previous Councillor, and the older asari had always looked down on her since the day she had accepted the offer of their old mentor. Then in the twilight years of her matron stage, through both her age and the status of her family, Irissa had developed an aloof attitude, treating others with scorn. She was cold and ruthless – in an informal comment that had been leaked to the press Udina had described her approach to negotiating as "squeezing her hand if it is around one's throat". But never once had Tevos wished for someone different, easier to work with. For all her problems, Irissa was at the top of her trade. She was incredibly well respected in both of the hidden upper houses of the asari republics – High Command, the council of matriarchs and veteran commandos responsible for the military, and the Matriarchal Council, the executive house that debated policies where the effects affected all asari. And Irissa was someone who was not afraid to put the views of the asari clearly on the table, unlike Tevos who had to always keep eyes on the other three species of the Council.

However, in the present situation, inside Tevos was screaming out to have a different matriarch to work with, even the crude and sometimes offensive Aethyta would be more preferable to the Ambassador at this juncture. Irissa leant against Tevos' control terminal, the light weight of the matriarch barely causing the device any stress as she regarded the councillor. "Tevos, I find it difficult to realise how you can disappear from view for three days at the moment the Alliance is attacked at Earth, and then reappear at a council meeting, looking absolutely dishevelled. Why?"

"Irissa, I do not need to really explain myself to you. The matter to which you refer to is not of your concern. Now please, the meeting is about to begin. As much as you desire it, this is not your place." The ambassador walked off of the stage as Morila and the remaining aides followed. Tevos' attendant gave her a reassuring glance as she followed the rest of the aides, leaving the four of the councillors behind their podiums in the cauldron of attention that was the Council Chambers. Tevos steadied herself, her attempts at pushing down the emotions inside her foiled almost immediately as she quickly read the briefing on the position that the matriarchy wished for her to take. As with the fallout from the attack by Sovereign on the Citadel, the only stance she was permitted to take was that of inaction – the Alliance couldn't be helped by the asari, not until they could rally their fleets and secure asari space against any possible invaders. And Tevos, though not having a military background, knew that that saying that was as good as saying 'not on your life' to the Commander. Summoning her strength and suppressing her emotions, she began the meeting as the unofficial yet natural speaker for the Council. "This meeting is called to order. All four councillors are in attendance. Udina, as the instigator of the meeting, you may begin."

"Thank you, Councillor Tevos. Councillors, we know as of three days ago that Earth has been hit by an unknown force. This is following the invasion of Batarian space roughly a week earlier. It has come to my attention that the forces that attacked both regions of space are the same, and that they beginning to expand their attacks throughout the galaxy."

"We've got our own problems, Councillor. Earth is not in this alone." Sparatus had only just received information that the Reapers were beginning to move ships inside the Arcturus Stream in preparation from an FTL jump towards colonies on the extremities of turian space, and the Alliance reckoned that once into the Aethon Cluster the Reapers would spear straight for the turian homeworld and the massed fleets assembled around it, as had been the case with Earth. Though he refused to admit it, Sparatus knew from his own military experience that the Reapers would soon be threatening the seat of turian civilisation.

"But Earth was the first Council world hit. By all reports, it faces the brunt of the attack."

"By your reports, Udina." Before any of the three could react to Valern's barb, a voice called out from the steps up to the chamber. While the first of the three figures that was walking up the steps was one known to Tevos, the second was the one her attention was fixated on, fixated enough so that she didn't see the third person hanging behind the two of them, just below the top step to the Council Chambers

"Udina is right. The reports are accurate – Earth was attacked." The voice was instantly recognisable, a voice that had been so prominent in the past three years, and so ignored by some of Tevos' colleagues. "And I do not need to say who attacked it. And it is _just_ the beginning." Tevos took a glance down at the datapads by her feet. To her absolute credit, Morila had used the chance to assemble the possible lines of argument that she could go with. It infuriated her, the lack of ability to help humanity before the asari could 'secure their own borders' was an insult to the principles of the Council itself.

"We understand, Commander. Each of our races is facing, or will face, a similar situation. I fear that if we lend you our strength to help Earth, our own worlds will fall." Though the words ran off her tongue with well practiced ease, Tevos still railed inside at the fact that she couldn't give the help she wanted to give.

"You do not understand! We must fight this enemy together!"

"And so, Udina, we should just follow you to Earth?" Udina's silence was an answer to Councillor Valern's question in itself, the human not having yet really considered anything further than getting the support of the fellow Council races.

"Even, Shepard, if we were to unite our fleets, do you really believe we could defeat the Reapers?" Tevos almost laughed at Sparatus' question – for the first time in years, he hadn't been making quotation marks with his hands while saying the word 'Reapers'. How times had changed in a short few months since the last time Shepard had spoken at an assembly of all the Councillors.

Liara T'Soni, the asari scientist that was so intertwined with Shepard's quest to unveil the Reapers, stepped forward, her omni-tool linking up to a holographic projector installed in the chambers. "Councillor, we have uncovered a blueprint, created by the protheans during their war with the Reapers."

"A blueprint for what?"

"We are still piecing it together, Councillor Sparatus, but it appears to be a weapon of some sort." The projector powered up, unveiling the outline for the weapon Liara had discovered in the Mars Archives. Details written in standard asari script described the weapon, Tevos squinting in an attempt to make out what she could from the long distance. From what she saw, the weapon was comparable in size to the Citadel, dwarfing everything, even the Destiny Ascension, which in itself dwarfed all other vessels in the galaxy.

"And you believe, Doctor, that it is capable of destroying the Reapers?"

"So it would seem, Councillor Tevos."

"The scale is…" Valern paused for a few seconds, running basic calculations with his hands before looking up towards the other councillors, before turning his head back to Shepard. "It would be a colossal undertaking, far beyond anything any one species could muster."

"We have already forwarded the plans to Admiral Hackett. The Alliance is already gathering resources to begin construction."

"By our calculations, once we complete the translation work on the designs, it should be very feasible to build." Liara tried to influence the discussion, wishing to have remembered the lessons on being a public leader her mother had taught her during her childhood. "If we were able to pool resources between species…"

"Have you considered, Shepard, that the Reapers were able to destroy the Protheans? What good did this weapon do for them?"

"We believe, Councillor Sparatus, that the Protheans were missing a single component. What it is we do not know, but we do know that the Protheans ran out of time before they finished constructing it."

"You still haven't _really_ answered my question, Doctor. Do you really believe this can stop the Reapers?"

"Liara believes it can work, and so do I. And as little as I have agreed with Udina, he is right. We need to stand together."

"Shepard, I understand. We know that the Reapers will not stop at Earth. They are already approaching Palaven. But the cruel and unfortunate truth is that, while the Reapers focus on Earth, we have a chance to regroup and prepare for the arrival of the Reapers, to build this weapon of yours." Udina hung his head in his hands as Sparatus dismissed his and Shepard's case, despairing that their arguments were being ignored completely.

"I agree with Sparatus, Commander. We are convening a summit amongst our species. We do not know the pattern of the Reaper advance, but if we can secure the borders of salarian space, then we may be able to consider aiding you."

Tevos was the last to speak, knowing that while she wanted to help Shepard in her fight against the Reapers, she was being hamstrung _again_ by the decisions of the commandos and matriarchs of the Asari High Command and the Matriarchal Council. "I'm so sorry Commander, but promises are only what we can give you at the moment. Until the asari can secure our own borders, and mobilise all of our fleets and our commandos, we cannot give you the help you need." Looking around, Tevos waited for any others to raise more points, but as she opened her mouth to call an end to the meeting, she was interrupted.

"There is another way, councillors!" Shepard blurted out before the politicians had the chance to leave. "The Alliance needs dry docks, repair facilities and supplies that we can't provide ourselves. You say that you can't give us support until the borders of asari, salarian and turian space are secured and your fleets assembled and prepared. Councillors, we can provide ships to help!"

"Shepard, are you completely mad?"

"With respect, Councillor Udina, I have been granted by your superior, Fleet Admiral Hackett, to negotiate as if I was the top representative of humanity, to make any negotiations necessary to secure the support that we need. This, here, is me negotiating." Shepard turned back to the councillors, and Tevos was nearly taken aback by the fire that she could read in the Commander's eyes. The Spectre's attention was concentrated on Sparatus first, but the turian, wary of the military pride of his own species and the damage accepting human help would deal, had to decline.

"Commander, while the support of your species would be appreciated, the turian military cannot accept your help. To enlist the help of human fleets would be an immense strain on our resources, especially the differences in supplies thanks to our conflicting amino acids. I'm sorry, Commander, but I will have to decline your help."

"Like Councillor Sparatus, I too must decline. To accept human help would draw too much attention to the Annos Basin, possibly prompting the Reapers to turn their attention towards us before we are ready."

Shepard's attention turned towards Tevos, and fed up with the stalling that the leaders of her people forced upon her, Tevos decided to take a course of action that would surely anger the highest echelons of asari society.

"What you are saying is that, if the asari provide damaged Alliance ships with repair facilities, you will send fleets to assist ours until we are at full readiness?" Shepard nodded, prompting a growl from Tevos' right as Udina wordlessly protested against the Spectre's actions. "Then I will send messages to the asari's main orbital and drydock facilities on Thessia and Cyone to prepare to receive your damaged vessels, Commander, if you would be able to spare us ships." Tevos glanced up at the balconies to the sides of the Council Chamber, seeing Ambassador Irissa reacting angrily to her statement, staring holes into her skull. Tevos knew that she would experience heavy backlash from what she had done this day, but if it saved the lives of at least one asari, then it would be worth it.

"Councillor, I will recommend to Hackett that the First and Third Fleets are sent to asari space to assist your fleets in securing borders."

"Your offer of assistance is well appreciated, Commander. I will send to Admiral Hackett details of the drydocks and orbital stations that can provide Alliance ships with repairs as soon as possible." Tevos paused, looking around at her other councillors to see whether there was anything more to be said. "If there is nothing more, then this meeting is adjourned."

Udina was not happy, something that Tevos couldn't fail to notice as she turned towards the exit of the Council Chambers. "Shepard, we are not finished with this. Meet me in my office!" Shepard shouted back, angry at the Councillor's double standards over the situation at hand. However, Tevos' attention phased out as she caught the eye of the third person accompanying humanity's Spectre, still hanging back below the speaker's podium on the steps up to the Chamber. All other thoughts ceased as a small tear formed in the corner of her eye, quickly blinked away before anyone else in the room could see the display of emotion from the usually composed asari. A single word formed in her head, overriding everything that was being said around the chambers.

_Kori._

* * *

**A/N: **This is probably one of the harder chapters that I've had to write. The next one was even harder, frankly.

**A/N 2:** Thanks to Theodur who pointed out some spelling mistakes in the chapter. They should be gone...


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: **I probably skimped out a bit on what should have been a longer conversation between Naylor and Tevos in this chapter. Nothing seemed to work any better than what I had originally written. That and I was too distracted watching (re-re-re-re-)re-runs of Man Versus Food on Dave...

* * *

**Day Four, Citadel space station, Serpent Nebula**

Tevos walked out towards the elevator, passing through the crowds of journalists, reporters and other politicians who all wanted audiences with one of the councillors. Morila and Irissa bundled their ways through the crowd, the young maiden creating a path through that Irissa followed before it closed. As they fell into step behind her, Irissa tried to get the attention of the councillor, but that was a task doomed to failure.

"Tevos." Irissa pulled on the councillor's shoulder when her calls failed to grab her attention. "Tevos, would you stop for a moment!" The councillor didn't pause as Irissa pulled her shoulder, carrying on relentlessly in her walk towards the elevator, the crowds parting in front of her out of respect. "Councillor!"

"What is it Irissa? Unless you have something that needs my immediate attention, I am trying to finalise possibly the most important negotiation in our species' recent history."

"Listen to yourself! You just went negotiated something that the matriarchs didn't give permission for, something that went against the line that the asari wish to take at this point. This could very well see the position that the asari hold within the galaxy being weakened, having to accept the assistance of others to survive."

"Can you stop looking at the long view for a few seconds? We won't have a position in the galaxy if we don't defeat the Reapers."

"_You_ won't have a position if you don't respect the position that you have been given within the asari republics. The matriarchs are furious, Tevos, it's just they don't show it. You very nearly defied their order to remain quiet over the issue of the Reapers three years ago and now you are defying their orders again."

"Irissa."

"What?"

"Please be quiet and let me explain." Irissa very nearly exploded, only stopped by Tevos' quick thinking. For the ambassador to explode like Tevos knew Irissa would in the public space of the Citadel Tower would be a public disaster for the councillor. "The position the matriarchs wished to take was that we cannot afford to help humanity unless our space is secure and our fleets and commandos mobilised."

"So? That doesn't merit giving support to the Alliance like you did!"

"I have not given the Alliance the support of our military. Not yet. The Alliance will be helping _us,_ in return for the repair facilities that they no longer have. The Alliance can help us with everything that the matriarchs want before they are ready to give support to humanity, securing our supply lines and the borders of asari space while our own fleets muster and our commandos are armed and deployed. We are not going against what the Matriarchs wish."

"I see your point." Irissa's tone was less hostile now, but she was still not supporting Tevos' decisions. "But what would you have me do when this is something you are doing behind the backs of the people you have to work with?"

"Start contacting the owners of our military shipyards and docks. Get them ready to receive the Alliance ships as soon as they are able to. You are the ambassador, responsible for liaising between the Citadel and the asari. I believe that is the role you were promoted to by Councillor Tani after your predecessor retired, yes?"

"And what will you be doing while I do that?" Irissa's voice had dropped several octaves, the ambassador growling in response to Tevos' goading. Her experiences with Irissa were why Tevos wanted to let Morila, barely older than Tevos had been when she had become an attendant to her predecessor, Councillor Jaral Tani, spend time developing her skills without having to compete with another attendant for attention. When it would become time for Tevos to retire, she wanted to make sure that the people that replaced her would have had the chance to develop their skills properly, whether under Tevos' guidance or the guidance of other political matriarchs around asari space.

"I will be in my office, drafting a formal treaty for the agreement that was made today. Then I may take lunch, though you are not free to join me." Tevos walked into the elevator, followed close behind by the ever-attentive Morila, leaving Irissa standing dumbfounded outside the entrance to the elevator. As the elevator sped down towards the bottom of the Citadel tower, towards the point where the ever gruelling change of gravity would be suffered by the occupants, Tevos and Morila stood, the latter looking incredibly confused at the way that the councillor had addressed the ambassador barely seconds before.

"Councillor, may I ask a question?"

"Of course, ask away."

"Do you think it was wise to agitate the ambassador as you did?"

"I am not sure, Morila. I fear whether I let my emotions get in the way of my better judgement today."

* * *

Two hours after the meeting, Tevos and Morila exited the asari embassy and walked out into the bustle of the lower levels of the Presidium Commons. Their destination lay ahead, a small restaurant run by an asari that Tevos trusted immensely. Two commandos hovered around the entrance to the restaurant, eating a meal while sharing the stories of two off-duty soldiers. Mallene and Serenya were the last two of her once comprehensive twelve-commando bodyguard, and she cared for them immensely. Staying in tune with their training, they barely offered a hint of a reaction at the arrival of the councillor, a choreographed routine that had been perfected over decades of experience. The commandos would not react when seeing the councillor as others would, stating to any onlookers that they were there to guard the councillor with their lives. Likewise, anyone that ignored the subtle reaction (or lack of it) from the commandos would find themselves on the receiving end of the biotics of two experienced and extremely well trained commandos that they didn't know were there.

Tevos was led by the owner to a secluded table at the back of the restaurant, where Morila, wanting to respect the space of the councillor, made for another table as soon as her boss was seated. Tevos had none of it, pulling her back to the table and telling Morila that as the only attendant under her guidance she was more than welcome to share a meal with her boss. Many asari matriarchs and influential leaders followed a practice of growing incredibly tight (and sometimes intimate) friendships with those that followed them, and though Tevos refused to go as far as some did, she professed that anyone that chose to follow or protect her could consider themselves to be an incredibly important person in the life of the councillor. It was how she came to care so much for Naylor, and how she had nearly lost it at the news of the destruction of his ship.

Her thoughts were pulled immediately to the person that had accompanied Shepard and Liara during the meeting in the Citadel Tower. The appearance of the third Alliance soldier was so much like how she remembered Naylor from their last meeting, and Tevos' mood suddenly dropped like a stone. It was something that Morila didn't fail to notice, suddenly concerned whether the councillor was lapsing back into the pain and suffering that she had been experiencing before the council meeting. She knew that, during the episode four days before when she delivered the news of the attack on Earth, she had panicked, and she had resolved during the meeting not to fail the councillor in the same way again. "Councillor? Councillor, are you alright?"

"Yes, Morila. Yes, I am fine. I just need a short while." Tevos' voice was faltering, and Morila took a gamble, calling over a waitress to get the councillor a large jug of water and a plate of small bites of food. The effect of the refreshments was immediate; the councillor calming down as she quickly sipped her way through a glass of water and took bites from the appetisers. Food, Morila noted, was a universal way of getting people to relax, a trait she knew would be useful to remember in later years. "Thank you."

"It is nothing, councillor."

"No, really, Morila. Thank you." Tevos offered the plate to Morila, who hesitated for a few seconds before accepting the offer and taking the smallest bite of food that she saw from the plate.

"If I may, councillor, could I ask a question?"

"Of course, ask away."

"You seemed fine during the meeting with Commander Shepard and the other councillors, but you seemed to undergo a sudden change as soon as the meeting ended. Why was that?"

"I suppose I should explain it, but please, Morila, say nothing more of this." Tevos took a sip of her drink, using the action to compose herself and place her emotions under control. "Commander Shepard was accompanied to the meeting by two others. I knew and recognised Doctor Liara T'Soni, but I didn't see the third person until the end, until I was leaving the chambers. He looked incredibly similar to kori, and I cracked slightly."

"I apologise for forgetting, Councillor, but this kori was a human lieutenant in the Alliance, right?"

"Yes. Staff Lieutenant Peter Naylor. Part of my brain wants me to rejoice that I have him back, but a far greater part says to me that he is just an officer who looks very similar to my Peter. I don't know what to feel, I don't know how to react." Tevos' confidence was wavering, and it was reflected in her voice as she explained the story to Morila. Thankful of the secluded nature of the table they were sitting at, Tevos was relieved when Morila's omni-tool began blinking on and off, signalling that a message was being received over the built-in messenger service on the machine. "You should answer that, Morila."

"Oh yes, of course!" Tevos turned her attention back to the food as Morila studied the message being received. From what Tevos could read of the asari's expression, it was not a personal message, but strictly business. "Councillor, that was a priority message received via the embassy's high-security connection, requesting a meeting with you as soon as is possible. It contains a code being flagged by the automated systems as being top priority, but there is no name attached."

"Let me see the code." Morila angled her omni-tool towards where the councillor could see the message on the screen. "That is a top priority code, but I can't recall who that belongs to. Have Mallene and Serenya notified, and tell the person to meet me here at the restaurant." Tevos' wasn't lying. While she knew everyone that had one of the codes that she had read, the list was huge, including many of the members of the matriarchal council, a number of commando leaders and several other people. She racked her brain relentlessly for the matching name to the code, but she failed to match it to any of the codes she had authorised.

"Here, in a restaurant? Should I have C-Sec move officers close to the establishment?"

"No, I am sure that my commandos can perform their job well." Morila turned her attention back to the omni-tool, organising the meeting as Tevos finished off the last of the food that Morila had had placed on the table. The attendant notified that the anonymous person the councillor was due to meet would arrive within a few minutes, and so the councillor took the time to take a bathroom break and order a fresh plate of food and glass of elasa from the waitress. Before she had left her table, Tevos had told Morila to join Mallene and Serenya at their table when the person scheduled for the meeting arrived, and walking back to her table Tevos saw the attendant with the two commandos. Knowing that the person she was due to meet had arrived, Tevos walked around and into view of the private table where she had been sitting a short few moments ago. When she saw who was there, she dropped the elasa, glass shattering on the floor and spinning out across the room.

* * *

Naylor's end to the meeting was rather less emotional than what the councillor felt, feeling happy at seeing her after a long period of time but not noticing the emotion. Before heading over to Udina's office, Shepard immediately began calling in favours from friends and colleagues she knew across the Citadel, both through official Alliance channels and through contacts she knew from being a Spectre. Supplies and fuel would be delivered to the Normandy over the course of the next few hours, allowing the crew a chance to relax while letting the Citadel's dock workers organise the refuelling and resupplying of the ship. At the time when Tevos was drafting the treaty for Ambassador Dominic Osoba to sign on behalf of the Alliance, Naylor had volunteered to contact some of Shepard's people and get the supplies they needed, meaning that the Normandy could redeploy to the front lines within a few day/night cycles on the Presidium. He had also met with Admiral Hackett during the past two hours, starting with the Admiral's staff the important process of transferring out the crew members that the Normandy had picked up that qualified to serve on cruisers and dreadnoughts to the rest of the Alliance Navy, while simultaneously getting a crew of those qualified to serve on frigates assigned to the Normandy. In the process, he had brought the Normandy's marine detail up to its supposed strength of twelve, making one in five of the Normandy's new crew under his command.

The crew was that the Normandy would ship out with was assembling at Docking Bay D24, and would be spending the next cycle acclimatising to their new posts and preparing the Normandy for take-off. With the jobs he had undertaken completed, Naylor found himself afterwards with a small amount of time on his hands, enough time to pay a visit to the embassy district and hopefully catch up with old friends, some dearer than others.

The elevator Naylor was taking finished its ascent from the docks to the floor of the Presidium, the lieutenant exiting into the financial district on the opposite side of the massive artificial lake to where the Alliance had its embassy, an elegant section of the Presidium rising from Ambassador Osoba's office just above the Presidium floor to Councillor Udina's office, towering mid-way up the side of the presidium ring. Naylor had never been to a Councillor's office before, and he had no plans to go to Udina's office any time soon, but his destination, the asari embassy, was located a fair way down the embassy district, and were he pressed for time, Naylor would more than likely take a skycar taxi to outside the entrance and skip the long walk to the offices. However, he had time to kill and there were plenty of restaurants that he could have a short lunch in and shops selling military hardware that his limited funds could make use of.

As he walked past an outlet for the Armali Council, the adverts for the consortium's new line of omni-tool, the Phoenix, reminded Naylor of his own equipment needs, having been running around making sure that the others in his marine team had the necessary equipment for when the Normandy was going to leave the Citadel. His armour, an N7-modified variant of the Inferno Armour, was working properly and the Normandy had copious stocks of spare parts for the armour's servos and helmet HUD, and while his weaponry was less of a concern, the only limit being how much time he, or whoever was on armoury duty at the time, had to clean the weapons after use. It was his omni-tool that was the greatest problem he had at that moment – the myriad of programs needed for his first generation omni-shield to function as designed restricted the usage of the device, a Savant Mark Eight from the Serrice Council consortium, to not much else, and the need to preserve hacking, bypass and communication functions meant that he lacked many of the offensive tech powers that other Paladins with their far more streamlined second generation omni-shields relied on.

Ignoring the flashing adverts for the Armali products, Naylor spied what he was looking for and quickly made a beeline towards it – an outlet selling Serrice Council goods. While the Armali Council restricted their products to those on their incredibly exclusive list of clients, goods manufactured by the Serrice Council were available to anyone, although they were at extremely high prices and required a very comprehensive and rigorous screening process before any potential customer could buy. Naylor, however, had been through that screening process, and presenting his purchasing license to the manager of the store he was granted access to buy the omni-tool he needed, a second Savant Mark Eight setting him back a fairly substantial forty thousand credits. Quickly slipping the device onto his right wrist, the Lieutenant pulled the small control wires along the top of his hand and fingers and clipped them onto his fingertips, the wires invisible unless someone was looking very, very hard. Turning on the omni-tool, Naylor braced himself for the small neural shock that followed its activation, a small node barely wider than one of the hairs on his arm linking into the nervous system in his wrist and quickly setting up the basic neural commands that would deal with activating and deactivating the holographic interface. Naylor planned to use the second omni-tool to run more combat functions, completing the full set of tech powers and abilities that later members of the Paladin stream had access to on a single omni-tool.

Finally making his way to the asari embassy after wasting time buying a second omni-tool, Naylor realised that, after checking the time on his omni-tool against the Citadel's official timing network, Tevos would be taking lunch, either in her office, thus slaving away at something and unable to take time out, or out in one of the restaurants close to the embassy district, most likely in a meeting with somebody. Such things were not out of the ordinary for a councillor, always having to work through the entire fourteen hour long day cycle on the Presidium to even stay on top of the workload they had, meetings, debates and other such jobs taking up valuable time throughout the day. Gambling on the latter, Naylor fired up his omni-tool and sent a request to Tevos' office to meet with the councillor, sending it anonymously and with the top level clearance code that Tevos had given him for moments like this. The reply was quick, telling Naylor to head to a restaurant he knew that Tevos considered a favourite, and made his way through the lunchtime crowds towards the establishment. Inside he saw and nodded to Tevos' two commando bodyguards, a pair he had known well for the best part of the previous two and a half years, and he instead made his way to the secluded part of the restaurant where he knew that the councillor could be found.

As he made his way to the table where he would find the councillor, he turned a corner and saw that the area was empty. Confused as to what was happening he suddenly heard the catching of breath behind him and the shattering of glass. "Councillor." Naylor turned at the sound of the glass shattering, suddenly being enveloped in a hug as Tevos clung onto him for dear life.

"You're alive. Oh Goddess, you really are alive!" The Lieutenant returned the embrace, wrapping his arms around the councillor as she tried to bury her head into his shoulder, tears flowing freely. "When I heard the news of the attack on Earth, I thought you had died with the Everest."

"I made it off of the Everest on the last surviving escape pod. I was lucky to be picked up by the Normandy before we ran out of air."

"Then the Goddess smiles upon you, kori. I don't think that I could have bared the pain of losing you." Naylor wormed his way out of the councillor's grasp, following her back to the table where they sat down on the same side, the councillor staying close out of the fear of losing Naylor again. But she could tell that something was different, off with the Lieutenant. "Kori, you seem distant. What is it?"

"Tevos, what is going on? You're unflappable when it comes to political negotiations."

"I'm not sure what you are talking about."

"All the emotion. You're a councillor, responsible for the wellbeing of billions, so why are you getting emotional over the slight mishap of a single human?"

"A slight mishap?" Tevos' eyes narrowed, her brow markings creasing into frown as anger welled up inside her. "Your ship was destroyed! You were almost killed!"

"I wasn't. I survived." Naylor stepped away from the councillor, pacing back around the other side of the table. "Damn it all. I'm sorry about all this."

"Do not be. I was the one who overstepped the line in all of this, not you."

"Huh?"

"I took this all too far. I thought like you were literally a part of my family, actually my son instead of just being family on a piece of paper as I suggested when this all began."

"I don't know how to react to that. You mean to say that you actually care about me as if I were your own child?"

"Yes. I'm a five hundred year old asari that has never taken a lover and has been in her matron stage for over two hundred years. I have never cared for someone like this before, like a mother would. That is how I feel about you, kori. I should have mentioned it the last time we spoke, but there wasn't time." An uncomfortable silence descended between the pair, Naylor subconsciously scratching the back of his head as it wore on. Tevos broke the monotony first, hurriedly asking a question to break the awkwardness between them. "So you are now on the Normandy?"

"Yeah. I suppose that could change so that I get deployed to the front line, given that to have two N7s on a single vessel is comparatively unheard of. But the Normandy isn't _exactly_ the most normal vessel in the galaxy." Tevos smiled, a small chuckle escaping before she replied to the comment.

"Staying on the Normandy would be at lot safer, kori. Your safety is all that matters to me right now."

"I wouldn't call the Normandy safe. She spent the past four days hiding in the Sol system before nearly being attacked when the Reapers hit Mars, so it's not as if Shepard will keep us out of harm's way. That said in my experience with the commander, Shepard is the sort of person will put you into the fight but will make sure that everyone comes out of it alive."

"I pray that your judgement isn't misplaced." Naylor nodded in response, quickly asking an approaching waitress for a glass of water and a small sandwich from the lunch menu. "I must ask though, how do you think the issue around the agreement between Shepard and myself will work?"

"I'm not sure. I expect Councillor Udina will raise hell with Shepard about usurping him like that, but the Alliance will probably take it on the chin and start deploying forces into asari space as soon as they get told where to go. Of course, we really need access to orbital and ground drydocks for any damaged ships to get repairs, otherwise a good portion of the Alliance fleet will simply have to be written off as floating junk."

"I think that's entirely reasonable. We have the Protheans to thank that all of our drive core designs are very similar, and the Alliance has a reputation amongst the asari for an excellent ability to work extremely well when under pressure. I am sure that between the asari and the Alliance, we can restore the strength of the Alliance fleets soon enough."

"Definitely. Personally, if I were in your shoes, I would suggest that Matriarch Lidanya talk with Admiral Hackett, try and see whether they can't work on prioritising what the Alliance can do for the asari as quickly as they can. Having two dedicated military types speaking together is far better than having an admiral talk to an office bureaucrat. No offence."

Tevos nodded at the suggestion, storing it away in her mind for when she would talk to the matriarch later on the subject, before understanding why sending Admiral Hackett straight to the highest ranked and most respected asari military officer in the galaxy would be better than routing it through her or, Goddess forbid, Irissa. While Lidanya would be able to get things done solely within the military, to route it through the Councillor or Ambassador's office would put the offers of Alliance help into the e-democracy to be put to use after many wasted days of debating and uninformed amendments on the forums.

"I will see how quickly I can have Lidanya meet Fleet Admiral Hackett, to get the proverbial ball rolling as the human saying goes. I don't see, however, what the Alliance gets out of this at the moment. There will be considerable resentment that humanity's fleets are flying away from Earth to resolve the problems of the asari."

"Good point. At the moment, all we are getting out of this are promises of future support as a return for having an even greater region of space to cover with patrols and forces ready to counter attack." Naylor ran some mental calculations, considering from his experience the possible ways that the asari could help the Alliance out in the immediate future. "Perhaps we could send asari commando groups to some of the more remote human colonies, such as Tiptree and Feros, to facilitate evacuations of civilians? They can go to places where the deploying of larger Alliance formations would be unsustainable over the long period of time needed for full evacuations, as well as being able to slip in behind Reaper lines to pull civilians back to safety. That is at least better than nothing."

"Yes, I see your thinking. Providing indirect support, out of combat and focusing on aiding civilians, will be received better by High Command, as we are not risking asari lives, and will be easier to implement. I will suggest that to Lidanya as soon as I can, and have her pass on the plans she can make to the matriarchy for review as well, not that Lidanya will allow them to change anything of course. The next time you're on the Citadel, I'd would love it if you could just pop your head in and make sure that I'm still coping. I may very well need someone just to talk to, to act as a ground against the chaos that the Reapers are causing. Of course, that would be if you're not inundated with jobs on your shore leave." Tevos added the final line as a precaution, still sensitive over what had happened in the last three days. What she didn't need was for Naylor to be dragged into a conversation by a councillor against his wishes while he was wanting to spend the few spare moments he had relaxing.

"I'd love to, but I have no idea when I'll be able to any form of-"

"Oh, Councillor! I didn't see that you had a guest at the moment." Naylor's head snapped up, looking towards the natural approach to the table. There stood an asari, the famous Consort Sha'ira, dressed in an elegant gown and accompanied by one of her acolytes, another asari.

"Consort, what an unexpected pleasure to see you."

"Thank you councillor. I had hoped that I could have had a word with you, but I can see that you're busy right now. I will not disturb you." Sha'ira had recently returned from a brief absence from the Citadel, retiring for a few months the year before to the colony of Nevos before returning just before the Reaper invasion of Batarian space, citing to the massed press reporters that "one does not forsake the heart of the galaxy in desperate times". The rumours surrounding her departure returned, but the consort, skilled with many centuries of experience in her line of work, was able to divert attention from the subject, working closely with charities when the first Batarian refugees began arriving in Citadel space.

"Its fine, Consort. I can leave and let you speak to the Councillor. I'll get out of your way." Naylor rose from where he had been sitting, moving to leave the restaurant and let the meeting between councillor and consort take place. However, a hand wound itself around his right wrist and gently guided him down to where he had been sitting. Tevos' purple fingers were wrapped around where the new omni-tool was lying on his wrist, and Naylor didn't resist the pulling force she was exerting.

"Sha'ira, if you wish to have a meeting, then please join us. Having company is always preferable." Sha'ira mulled over the suggestion, before sitting herself down in one of the free seats around the table. Her acolyte remained standing, but took a chair at the table after Tevos began politely staring at her, using her facial expression to suggest to the acolyte that standing was not an option that the councillor liked. "Now, what did you wish to discuss?"

"I suppose it may border on being personal, but in the past few days I have been hearing a good number of comments and rumours concerning you."

"What rumours?"

"The rumours are varied, as always. Many are simply conspiracies, but there are a few which concern your personal life and family."

"Oh, please explain."

"Some are simply continuations of the old rumour that Aria T'Loak has been intimately involved, to say, with yourself, while others suggest that you have secretly taken a lover. However, there are rumours, however few, that say that you have used the old adoption custom of yiothesia."

"Sha'ira, what I will say will not extend beyond this room. Could you ask your acolyte to leave please?" Sha'ira nodded at her companion; the asari leaving and making her way back out into the main section of the restaurant. However, the consort was now looking at Naylor in the same way, expecting him to leave, but Tevos' hand was still keeping him in his seat.

"Councillor, what about the human here? Should he not be leaving as well?"

"The rumours you have mentioned concern Lieutenant Naylor here. And yes, I did use the custom of yiothesia."

"Wait, the human lieutenant here is-? No, that cannot be right."

"It is, Sha'ira."

"You adopted him?"

"Yes." Sitting on the side of the conversation between the two asari, Naylor resisted the urge to interject with something like "I'm right here!" or similar. Instead, he simply let the conversation run on until he was either forced into the conversation or found the chance to join it himself.

"What were you thinking? You have made an incredible target of yourself by doing this, not to mention him!" Sha'ira was rightly concerned – anyone could get at the councillor through the lieutenant, and if anyone was able to get at the councillor it would quickly become a threat to galactic security. "Why did you need to adopt a human, councillor?"

"Lieutenant Naylor here has no recorded family, no parents, and no relatives. I asked him to take part in a project on Thessia, but was stymied by the immigration." Compared to her earlier explanation to Lidanya, Tevos was as composed as someone of her occupation and status could be, emotion replaced in her expression by an ingrained lack of it. It never failed to amaze Naylor at how much innate control the councillor had over her own expression. "Naylor had served as a bodyguard for me for a small period of time, but when I found out through Lidanya that he had no family, I felt sorry, as if I needed to do something. Adopting him under yiothesia was the best that I could do, giving him a chance to be a part of the project. It was all I could do, short of circumventing the rules."

"I see. And did the Lieutenant know of this?"

"I did, Consort. I was initially against it for similar reasons, that anyone could compromise Tevos' integrity as a politician by targeting me, and that it was breaking the rules that are in place for good reasons. But I have faith that things will work out well, and it's not as if Alliance N7 operatives are easy targets." Sha'ira smiled at Naylor's remark, remembering back a time in 2183 when Shepard had helped her out with a series of problems. The commander had impressed her hugely, and while she was certain that Naylor was yet to reach a similar level as the Spectre, the consort was in no doubt that the young lieutenant could handle the risks that the position

"Thank you for helping explain it, Lieutenant. It has helped a lot with understanding the situation, and I am confident you will be fine."

Naylor responded with a half bow of his head. "You honour me with the kind words, Consort."

"You are more than likely deserving of them, Lieutenant. Councillor, if you are able, I would like to speak with you more often, as friends rather than as a politician and consort." Tevos nodded in response, smiling honestly. It was no secret to Sha'ira that Tevos enjoyed the consort's company as a friend – Tevos had said often that talking to her was always brightened the days when they could speak with each other, and the consort knew from the way that Tevos acted around her that that was true. "I will be in touch, councillor. However, if there is nothing more, I would like to give the lieutenant a gift of words, in passing."

Flabbergasted, Naylor only nodded as the Consort rose from her seat, moving closer to the lieutenant and taking his hands in hers. Closing her eyes, Sha'ira centred herself, taking slow, deep breaths and mentally canting the rituals she practised in this facet of her daily job. "Lieutenant, I see in you a man who is not afraid to put the needs others in front of his own. It is a quality that defines who you are as a person behind the image of a soldier. Yet the discipline of your job runs through you, and it gives you a certain strength, allowing you to do what you must to fulfil the goals you have been set. This is a strength people will rely on in time. Do not forsake this strength or your own values, but there will come a time when you will be forced to choose between one and the other. Remember this, Lieutenant, and I wish you well."

* * *

**A/N: **I get rather surprised at how long chapters can actually get. I was writing these chapters to a plan of 4,000 words each, but some of them end up being much, much longer. It's strange, frankly. Where do these words come from?

The gift of words may have not been great, and was quite a bit different from the original idea that I had when writing this part of the story, but like Sha'ira's two small bits during Mass Effects 1 and 2, it provides a nice bit of foreshadowing for the story ahead. And I had to find a way of putting in flabbergasted...


	5. Chapter 5 (Palaven)

**Day Six. Menae orbit, Apien Crest**

Shepard had called everyone on the Normandy to battle stations as the frigate neared the Apien Crest. It was the first time that they had fought together, barring those that Shepard had worked with before, and the frigate was soon a cauldron of noise and activity as crew members ran to take up their stations. Every station in the CIC, both around the sides, by the massive holographic projector in the middle, and in the access tunnel between the CIC and the bridge, was being used, and junior officers were flitting between their subordinates, taking down what they needed to know and making sure their charges were fully prepared for the chaos that would be coming in the next few minutes.

The commander, along with Naylor, James Vega and Liara T'Soni, stood in the bridge behind Joker, the Normandy's pilot, trying not to get in the way of the scurrying bridge crew as they readied the Normandy to drop out of FTL in the Trebia System. From what they could tell, the entire system was a warzone. A warzone that the turians were losing control of. The ship's VI, EDI, had been relaying up to date information on the situation in the system, and it pointed to hundreds of the larger, Sovereign-class Reapers and hundreds more Reaper Destroyers crowding the system, fighting against thousands of turian vessels that were desperately trying to reopen safe routes into their homeworld's orbit, which the Reapers now held.

The Normandy blasted out from FTL near Menae as the Turian First Fleet, the pride of the Turian Hierarchy's navy, was being systematically taken apart by the Reapers, just like their human counterpart five days before. From the viewports on the Normandy's Crew Deck and on the bridge, crew members looked out at the combat unfolding as with stealth systems engaged they snuck through the detritus of combat towards Palaven's first moon. Liara kept her eyes fixed on the satellite in front of the Normandy, seeing the blossoming explosions and the other signs of the fierce combat below. Naylor followed her gaze, suddenly seeing the ominous black forms of the huge Reapers on the surface and the devastation that followed their paths. Shepard, evidently, had had enough of seeing the strongest military in the galaxy being dismantled like a ship in a scrap yard, and turned to make her way through the CIC and down to the hangar bay. Already fully armoured up like the commander, Naylor, James and Liara, in her light armour/clothing combination, followed suit.

"Lieutenant Naylor, I want you to get a squad of four ready to go down to the surface, including yourself. James and I will lead the group. We've managed to make contact with a General Corinthus of the 97th Division, so keep an eye out for him."

"Shepard, what can I do to help?"

"Oh, Liara, see what you can do here on the Normandy and-"

"Lola, are you sure you want us to ignore Doc's biotics? She was pretty good on Mars."

"I agree with Vega, Commander. I can load my team with another three biotics, but none of them are anywhere near as good as an asari." Shepard paused in her walk to the elevator, turning around with an almost angry expression on her face, but she quickly gave in to the argument that was being set against her. Throughout her time alongside the young asari, Shepard had instinctively tried to shield her from the fighting that the Normandy was always in the thick of. She knew it was more of a sibling-like reaction to events, but Shepard understood that, without Naylor's ground team in the picture, the asari would have to have gone with her to Menae, and even with Naylor's team alongside them, Liara's biotics were up there with the best in the galaxy.

"Alright. Liara is with us then. Let's get ground side."

* * *

Naylor's team of Sara, an engineer, Cleveland, an adept, and Sergeant Takeida, a straight up grunt, all waited as the Kodiak dived for Menae's surface. The ride was bumpy as the shuttle dived down through Menae's artificial atmosphere, and every so often Cortez had to quickly warn the occupants before making a quick evasive turn that overloaded the shuttle's inertial dampers. His co-pilot Khan, who had been assigned to the vessel while they were still docked at the Citadel, worked quickly to bring the dampers back online, only to be back to square one when the next evasion was made.

Liara sat in her own flight harness beside the shuttle's interior monitor, and Naylor watched as she suddenly gasped as a feed from the Normandy focussed on Palaven itself. "Oh no, Palaven." The so-called 'Silver World' was burning in hundreds of places, a massive orange scar on the surface dominating what would have previously been called Cipritine, the planet's capital. Now it was simply another warzone in the fight for the survival of the galaxy, and thousands there died every minute to try and defeat the Reapers as the synthetics advanced.

"Holy hell!"

"Shit." Takeida spoke up from the seat he had taken, opposite the display. "That really doesn't look good down there."

"Was it like this on Earth?"

"Yeah."

"Shepard, I'm so sorry."

"The turians have it worse than us, though. Earth has a lot more countryside than Palaven." Shepard looked over from where she had been standing beside the door, watching the display as her heart sank. "We have a good friend down there."

"Then we better hope your friend is still alive." Naylor spoke up from the corner, rolling his helmet around in his hands. "If you're anything to go by, commander, any of your friends would be a hell of an asset to the team."

"Aye." Shepard rested against the wall of the shuttle, looking downcast. She knew that Garrus would be in the thick of it right now, and even though her best friend was out there, she knew that going to get him was not something she could do. If Garrus was to join Shepard and the Normandy again, he would have to come to them.

"Commander! The LZ is getting swarmed!" Cortez shouted up from the Kodiak's cockpit, drawing everyone's attention as the two pilots made their preparations for the final approach. Shepard grabbed her Shuriken from her hip, checking the thermal clip as she walked towards the door.

"James, get the hatch." The Kodiak's side door flung open as James hit the release switch, and Shepard automatically set to work on the waves of husks on the ground below with her submachine gun. James watched in awe as the Spectre took down Reaper soldier after Reaper soldier with precise shots. Cortez manoeuvred the Kodiak down towards the least threatened of the nearby turian base's entances, keeping clear of any husks trying to approach the closed side of the Kodiak.

"Nice shooting, Tex!"

"Thank you James. Alright, get in, grab a Primarch and get the hell out of the system. Let's go!" Shepard led the squad out of the shuttle, jumping down to smash the face of a husk in with her biotics. "Naylor, you and your guy Takeida go up on the right and link up with the turians at the base. Take Liara with you. James, Cleveland, Sara, down the centre. Go!"

Naylor, Takeida and Liara made their way around the right, heading straight towards a prefabricated bunker occupied by a turian and his wounded colleagues. After a quick thought, Naylor grabbed a medi-gel sachet from Sara before running forwards towards his target. Liara and Takeida had already pulled themselves into the bunker ahead, the asari crouching low to apply medi-gel to the wounded turians and keep them covered with a barrier. Naylor tossed the sachet to her before sliding into cover with the turian.

"Good to see you, Alliance! General Corinthus is up ahead, in the main base."

"Acknowledged, Hierarchy. Takeida, husks to our front." The sergeant simply nodded, sighting down his Avenger and firing towards the husks charging across the open ground towards them. As Naylor joined the shooting, the husks became caught in a crossfire, Shepard's group suddenly finding themselves free of husks advancing from their side and shifting to attack the ones converging on the bunker. Scores of converted troops were taken down in the shooting before the attacks stopped and the Reapers retreated, thermal clips hissing as the Alliance team reloaded and checked their weapons.

"Thanks for the save, Commander. We can handle it from here. The base is round to the right from here, on through the first barricade. I'll send word you're arriving."

"Cheers. Good luck." The Spectre gave a clap on the shoulder to the turian before following his directions. Sure enough, a barricade held by a pair of exhausted-looking turians was ahead, and the sentries straightened their backs as they saw Shepard at the head of the group, waving them through without pause. The barricade lowered in the centre to reveal the turian base, an enclosed array of prefabs that housed medical facilities, a tactical command centre and a station for a forward air controller, alongside the usual accommodation facilities, ammunition storage and defensive bunkers. To any normal army, it would have been a difficult nut to crack. To the Reapers, it was just another delay to their inexorable advance.

As Shepard and her team neared the command centre, they could begin to overhear the conversation taking place inside. It sounded dire.

"Sir, some reinforcements just came in from General Victus' battle group, and an Alliance group arrived from the south."

"Good. Tobestik, get your men on that north barricade. Sergeant Bartus, find a way to get that communications tower operational." The two turian NCOs that General Corinthus had issued orders to scrambled off, Tobestik rallying the surviving men of his squad and making their way onto the large barricade covering the northern approaches. Bartus made his way towards the large communications tower to the north west, taking two engineers with him and his squad for when they got through the Reaper forces there and reached the damaged tower.

"General." Shepard saluted as she made her way into the command centre, Liara and James following her.

"Commander Shepard. I heard you were coming, but I didn't believe it. General Corinthus, commander of the 55th Marine Division. Or what's left of it. You're not much of a general when you only have three hundred men to command."

"We've come to get Primarch Fedorian." The mention of the Primarch's name caused Corinthus' head to slowly rise up away from the terminal he had been typing away on.

"Primarch Fedorian is dead. His shuttle was shot down an hour ago as it tried to leave the moon."

"That's going to complicate things." Shepard mumbled underneath her breath, though the statement was not lost on Corinthus. "How bad are things going?"

"My division's lost four hundred men in half an hour. I can't say much about most of the other units. We set up camps on the moon as an advance position so we could flank the enemy and give ourselves a lifeline between Palaven and the mass relay to the Citadel. A sound strategy, just irrelevant how the Reapers cut us off from our own planet." Corinthus looked up at the scenes of the huge naval battle between the turian fleets and the Reapers, sighing as the explosions of another destroyed ship became like another star in the sky. "The sheer force of the Reapers makes them immune to these sorts of tactics. Fedorian and his men found that out the hard way."

"I understand. So what happens now?"

"The Hierarchy has strict lines of succession. But with such heavy casualties, I'm uncertain who the next Primarch of Palaven would be. Palaven Command might know, but we can't contact them without the communications tower operational."

"And husks are swarming that area, Commander." Sara had idled her way over to the barricade closest to the tower. "The turians haven't been able to get close enough to repair it."

"We'll handle it, General. You take things from this end." Shepard unholstered her Shuriken, signalling for everyone else to do the same. "Sara, I want you on the tower with help from Naylor. Liara, give them biotic cover. Everyone else, punch through to the tower and set up defensive positions." The Spectre led the way through the base, turian soldiers following their movements on the roofs of the prefabs around them. Sara, at the barricade nearest the tower, waved them on through as she started firing on the husk hordes around the communications tower. Naylor and Liara headed left, towards where Sergeant Bartus and his fellow turians were hunkered down with wounded colleagues. Their engineers had been attacked while they were making their way to the tower, and both were fighting for their lives against their injuries.

"Husks have the tower, Lieutenant. They're well dug in."

"Leave them to Shepard. She's got this."

The pair set to work applying medi-gel to the wounds, covered by Takeida who would occasionally call Naylor's attention away to deal with a score of husks that were going directly for the small group. Naylor's Mattock found itself in his hand almost immediately as he helped his sergeant shoot down the converted humans in droves.

"Fish in a barrel, eh sir?"

"Aye, fish in a barrel." Ignoring the looks from the confused turians and asari, Naylor cycled a new thermal clip before taking out a husk that had latched itself onto Cleveland's shoulder with a shot to the head. The adept nodded towards the Lieutenant in thanks, before she twisted her fingers and a singularity erupted in front of her. Suddenly it detonated, Naylor quickly turning to see Liara pulling back from the posture one would use to hurl a warp field at a target, a satisfied look on her face as she turned back to the wounded turian she had been treating.

"Sara, Naylor, Liara. Coast to the tower is clear!" As soon as Shepard's call came through, the three of them abandoned what they had been doing and ran towards the base of the tower. Sara reached the control panel there first, but immediately slumped in defeat.

"Scheisse. We can't repair the tower just from this panel." Being the one with technical knowledge on her side, Sara was naturally giving orders, a situation to which Naylor and Liara didn't object. As the engineer began trying to find a workaround, Shepard came up with the remainder of the team. "I need one of you to go up into the tower itself and see what you can do."

"I've got some experience with things like this. I'll go up and take a look. Shepard, if you can keep husks from climbing up behind me, I would appreciate it."

"I'll head up too, Doctor. I can cover you with the omni-shield and provide help if needed."

"Sounds good, Lieutenant. Liara, we'll cover you from down here." Shepard deployed her squad around the tower, covering all the approaches to the panel at the bottom of the tower. Liara grabbed the ladder and worked her way up into the small compartment where Sara wanted her to help repair the tower. Naylor followed suit, but quickly noticed that the space would be too small for the pair of them to do their jobs.

"It may be a slight squeeze, Lieutenant."

"Don't worry. I have a plan." Naylor dragged a small cable from the back of his armour, hooking it around the railing above the entrance to the compartment and clipping the end off to secure him above the battlefield. "Sorted."

"That is quite an ingenious solution, Lieutenant." Liara set to work, bringing up the interface that she would need to work on the repairs that Sara was talking her through over the radio. Naylor triggered his omni-shield, lowering himself into a crouch as Reaper reinforcements, drawn like moths to a candle, began dropping around the tower. A few cannibals were amongst the husks, and seeing Naylor high up the tower he drew their fire like a magnet. Thankfully, he had drawn his Eagle in his left hand and fired back, protected from the cannibals' fire by his omni-shield and deadly accurate in return.

Guided by Sara's expertise, Liara was quickly able to finish things on her end, and the engineer took over, establishing the vital connection to Palaven Command. With her work done, Liara and Naylor extricated themselves from the compartment high up the tower and made their way down the ladder to join the fight. As soon as Liara's feet touched the floor, a husk tried to get the jump on the asari, but Naylor stepped around her and backhanded the husk away with a sweep of his omni-shield. Priming the surface to heat even further, Naylor punched the side of the shield edge first into the husk's neck, carving straight through, while behind him Liara tossed a couple of husks away with a quick singularity-warp combination.

"Tower's fixed, commander."

"Alright. Corinthus, communications are back up."

"Much appreciated, Commander. I'll contact Palaven Command. Sergeant Bartus and his men are moving to secure the tower. You should see them on the rocks to the left." Sure enough, Naylor followed Shepard's line of sight and saw the turian squad digging in on a rocky ridge overlooking the communications tower. They had good line of sight and good avenues of fire from that position, and the sheer facing would make it difficult for husks to reach the squad and take them out with their claws.

"I see them. We're heading back to the base now." The journey back was far less adventurous, a few surviving husks getting in Shepard's vengeful way before being tossed back by her under-used biotics. Naylor spent most of the time trying to step over the dead bodies of the husk horde that now carpeted this part of Menae, something that most of the squad were also trying to do with varying degrees of success. The approach to the barricade saw a miniature wall of corpses stacked about ten metres from the wall, but Shepard had everyone jump it to avoid mucking up the natural obstacle. Inside the base it was a comparative sea of calmness, although some of the troops resting there were expressing fears over the form of a Sovereign-class Reaper approaching from the south.

"General, what do you have?" Shepard walked up to Corinthus' command centre, hoping to every deity possible that there would be a swift solution to the mission on Menae.

"As I said earlier, when a Primarch dies there is a clear line of succession. However, with so many on Palaven either dead or missing, I'm not certain who will be the next Primarch of Palaven."

"I don't care who it is." Shepard slammed her hand down on the holographic display, distorting the image on it for a few seconds before it was able to adjust once more. "I need someone who can speak for the turians and I need them now."

"Please, Commander. I am trying my best. However, we do have one person who can help you find who we think is the next Primarch."

"Who?" Corinthus pointed towards a fully armoured turian making his way up the walkway into the command centre. To Shepard and Liara, the figure was distinctive, clad in blue and silver combat armour and wearing a holographic visor above his left eye, with a mass of scars on his right cheek and a poorly maintained series of colony markings. Shepard immediately set towards the turian as he arrived in the prefab, crushing him in a tight hug much to the amusement of Corinthus and Liara and to the confusion of everyone else there. "Garrus my old friend! I thought you were on Palaven!"

"If we lose this moon, we'd lose our only easy lifeline to Palaven. I'm the closest thing we have to an expert on the Reapers, so I'm, uh, 'advising'." Garrus punctuated the last words with quotation marks, prompting Shepard to laugh at the in joke between those on her team.

"And advising involves a sniper rifle?" Garrus broke out in laughter. "James, this is Garrus Vakarian. Hell of a sniper. He helped me stop the Collectors and Saren." The turian nodded in response.

"Lieutenant. Good to see you too, Liara."

"Good to see you in one piece Garrus." Liara gave a small smile as she saw one of her closest friends in the past few years. "Though I wish it were under better circumstances."

"I wish that all the time whenever I meet Shepard. Who are the other guys?"

"Garrus, these are Lieutenant Naylor and a group of his marines, Sara, Cleveland and Takeida. They're onboard the Normandy as cannon fodder."

"HEY!"

"I supposed that you'd have need of someone who you can tell to run at the nearest Reaper as a distraction." Garrus brought up his omni-tool, highlighting a dossier that he had been preparing for Shepard to read. "Corinthus filled me in. We're after General Adrien Victus. I was fighting alongside him this morning, and some of his men are holding positions around this camp, so we know where we're going. He's one of the best commanding officers the Hierarchy has, popular with his troops and gets the job done, though he has quite a sour relation amongst the higher orders of the hierarchy."

"How so?"

"On Taetrus during the uprisings, his men discovered a salarian spy ring inside a series of fortifications while fighting against the rebels. Instead of taking on both at the same time, Victus fell back and allowed the rebels to take over the fortifications and thus the salarians. When both groups had fought each other to a standstill, Victus swept in with a mechanised brigade and took out both the surviving groups without losing a man."

"Sounds like our kind of guy. Where do we go to find him?"

"His base is on the Matias Ridge, but his forces have been stretched over a pretty wide area to cover other units' casualties."

"Okay, let's head out then." Shepard made her way down the steps, but the sudden noise of Joker's voice breaking across the ship-shore communications channel stopped her in her tracks.

"Commander! We have a situation on the Normandy. It's like EDI's possessed. She's been powering up weapons, shutting down systems. None of us can find the source." Everyone listening in on the conversation, including Garrus once he could patch himself in, could hear the slight tone of panic in Joker's voice. His attachment to the Normandy and EDI was bordering on love, but Shepard knew that the pilot was one of if not the best, and she needed the Normandy ready for a quick getaway.

"Alright. I need the Normandy standing by and ready in case we need to bug out fast."

"Should I head back and take a look?"

"Do it, and take Lieutenant Naylor with you."

"What about Sara?" Takeida spoke up from the side of the command centre that he had been leaning on during the conversation. "She's perfectly suited for this."

"I need someone with proper engineering skills on the ground. Naylor and Liara both have decent technical expertise, and they can deal with the Normandy and assist Engineer Adams. I want to keep Sara on the ground in case we need to fix any more towers or conduct more extensive repairs."

"Aye aye, Commander." Liara nodded to Shepard before setting off to where Cortez had the shuttle parked in a safe area of the airfield. Naylor followed, quickly snapping off a salute as a formality before running out and away to the shuttle himself, catching up with Liara as she was clambering in through the side door.

"Doctor, what's so special about EDI that it can control weapons and ship-based systems?"

Liara sighed as the shuttle took off. "EDI isn't a normal VI, or an enhanced VI as some think. You'd find this out normally, but she's a fully aware AI that is dedicated to the preservation of the ship."

"Oh." Naylor was stunned into silence at the revelation. He guessed correctly that it was Cerberus who had installed the AI in the first place, as they had built the ship, but he was intrigued as to how EDI's AI status had been kept quiet from the Alliance. Ignoring the questions, Naylor focussed on the ever expanding list of issues that would likey have to be addressed when they returned to the Normandy. He wished at that point that Sara was in fact with them – they would need all the help they could get.

* * *

"There are dozens of them!"

"Garrus, James, you two and I focus on the Brutes. Takeida, have your group taking out the other Reapers before switching targets. We are not losing this Primarch!" Matias Ridge was a hotbed for Reaper attacks, and had been for hours. When Shepard's team arrived, the Reapers had broken into the main base of Victus' battlegroup and were threatening to overwhelm them with sheer numbers. Two of the large Reaper war beasts, things referred to by the turians as brutes, were running rampant around the camp, and a sizable number of the converted batarian cannibals were supporting them. The turians had withdrawn into their bunkers, firing at the Reapers from the relative safety of the defensive positions, but already two of the metal structures had caved in under the repeated impacts of a brute's charge and were set on fire when the electronics inside were smashed and began sparking.

Takeida' squad moved forward towards one of the burning bunkers, taking cover around it and turning their attention to the cannibals in the camp. Each of the marines would occasionally pop up to fire his or her weapon at the Reaper forces, taking one down quickly with teamwork before the Reaper units returned fire. Shepard's group had more problems, the brutes being heavily armoured and almost impervious to their small arms fire. Only Garrus, with his Mantis sniper rifle, was able to cause much more than a minor annoyance to them, shooting out eyes and leaving the rampaging monsters partially blind and even more agressive.

"Hey, Lola. We need to take these pendejos out, pronto."

"I know, James. I wasn't banking on armour plating!"

"No clue!" James hurled his last grenade towards a brute, the explosion catching it in a weak spot but to little effect. Even where its armour plating was missing, the brute's skin was still tough enough to shrug off the shrapnel as if it was nothing. Suddenly, however, the brute was rocked by another hit, falling dead to the floor as steam rose from a gaping hole in its back. "What the hell?"

"Commander, the turians have a panzer!" Sara's cry from the opposite side of the base was true – a turian hover tank, known as a Jiris, had appeared on the scene, and was traversing its turret towards the other brute. Which meant Takeida's team were in the line of fire.

"Takeida, move!" The Jiris' first shot smashed into the burning bunker beside Takeida's team, sending them scurrying away for cover. The next was closer, hitting the floor between the brute and where Takeida was crouching. As the brute turned to charge at the Jiris, the crew fired again, the shot smashing through the brute's exposed neck and severing the head. The lifeless beast fell to the floor in a clatter of armour plates. The turians had finished off the remaining cannibals, leaving the base in an eerie state of silence, only broken by James' shout as he stared at the hovering Jiris.

"I have got to get me one of those!"

"They are not for sale, Lieutenant." A pair of turians marched over from the command centre to greet Shepard's team. "Thank you for the assist."

"You probably had it covered, but better safe than sorry." Shepard extended her hand, which thankfully the turian took in his own. "Commander Shepard, Spectre."

"General Adrien Victus, 21st Turian Armoured Corps." Behind her helmet, Shepard couldn't help but smile. They had found their guy and he was alive. "Ah, Vakarian. Where the hell did you go?"

"There were a trio of brutes on the left flank. I believe your exact words were 'Get that thing the hell off of my men'."

"Of course." Victus led the commander back over to his command centre, issuing orders to refortify the base to those of his men that could still fight. "Commander, I'm interested to know why you're here."

"General, I'm going to be blunt. You're the new Primarch of Palaven."

Victus stopped in his tracks, stunned at what Shepard had said. Looking up towards the burning planet in front of him, Victus' face lit up as the Jiris' missile rails unleashed a swarm of shots towards a distant target. "I'm Primarch of Palaven?"

"Yes, and you're needed urgently. Primarch Fedorian had organised a war summit between the Council races before the Reapers hit turian space. We need you to represent your people."

"But why come out here, go through all this to get me? I could have found out any other way."

"Primarch, you know what is happening with Earth, but this isn't about my species' homeworld. Admiral Hackett has ordered me to get support for our plan to stop the Reapers, and I need the turians if that is to happen." Victus continued staring at the world above him, breathing slowly as what had been said to him slowly sunk in. With a deep exhale, he turned around to face Shepard and her group.

"Commander, I will support your plan, whatever it is, because it is the only thing we have left. But I cannot spare the turian fleets, not while Palaven is burning."

"So if we can alleviate the pressure somehow, then you will support the Alliance?"

"Yes."

"Then we will help you in any way we can." Shepard opened up her radio back to Cortez on the Normandy. "Cortez, this is Shepard. Bring the shuttle down and remember to roll out the red carpet. We have a Primarch with us."

* * *

**A/N:** The first of three extra chapter's I'm going to be adding in to the story over the course of the next few minutes. I'm so sorry readers, I'm so sorry!


	6. Chapter 6 (Sur'Kesh)

**Day Ten, Sur'Kesh orbit, Annos Basin**

Shepard knew that things weren't going to all go to plan for a quick victory when she got a call over the QEC from the asari embassy on the Citadel. The QEC connection that the Alliance had set up there was supposed to be restricted only to Councillor Tevos' use, given Shepard's role as a Spectre, but when a different asari came up when Shepard accepted the communication from the space station, she was slightly confused.

To anyone who didn't know better, Ambassador Irissa and Councillor Tevos looked exactly the same as each other. To Shepard, having met the Ambassador previously, she knew the difference. Though the two shared the same skin and tattoo colour, Irissa's tattoos were far less extensive than Tevos', without a number of markings on her lips, around the eyes and on the cheeks, and she had blue eyes rather than the muted gold that Tevos' eyes were. However, the easiest way to differentiate was that Irissa didn't have the pronounced scales on her head crests like Tevos did, a result of her asari-quarian parentage in the same way that the rare asari-vorcha offspring had dairy allergies.

"Greetings, Ambassador."

"Commander Shepard, I am sorry but your war council is doomed to fail." With Tevos concentrating on coordinating the execution of the agreement made between her and Shepard four days ago, the asari matriarchal council had tasked Irissa with filling in for the Councillor at Fedorian's war council, now being chaired by Primarch Victus following his predecessor's death at the hands of the Reapers. Unfortunately, Victus had almost immediately stated that he wanted krogan boots on Palaven for him to grant his support for the Alliance. Immediately he had been met with hostility from the salarians, the elcor and the hanar, who had all expressed concern over the use of krogan support. Irissa, who had always harboured an almost vicious disdain of the krogan for the Krogan Rebellions, was adamant that any attempts to negotiate their entry into the war would fail without any benefit to the alliance being formed thanks to Shepard's attempts.

"Ambassador, I understand your apprehension over the inclusion of the krogan to the council, but we need their help. We need the help of everyone in the galaxy."

"Commander, you do not understand how risky it is to include the krogan. We risk history repeating itself if they expand too quickly once again." The last comment made Shepard very angry. Leaning over on the control console by the communicator, the Spectre took a few minutes to think through her next few words. If she was tactical, she could avert what she knew to be coming.

"Ambassador, if we do not defeat the Reapers, a far longer and far more common repeat of history will be repeated once more. Without the krogan, there is no turian support for the Alliance. Without turian support for the Alliance, there is no victory against the Reapers."

"Then I must regret to inform you that the asari will not be at the war summit. We are already going to support the war effort thanks to your agreement made on the Citadel, but we will not attend the council. That said, I have been instructed to inform you that units of asari commandos will be deployed into Alliance space to assist with the evacuation of civilians. However, we do not yet wish to deploy fully against the Reapers until we are ready, as we fear that to join the fight will draw unnecessary attention to our worlds. Therefore, the commando units will be restricted to largely non-combat roles."

"Ambassador, wait-"

"Good day, Commander." The connection was cut as Irissa leant forward to kill the communication, leaving Shepard standing alone and irritated in the comm room.

It had been the plan to get all four of the council races at the council as a start, but it seemed that the arrival of the krogan would mean losing the asari for the moment, even though they would be helping in other fashions. And Shepard wasn't disappointed at gaining asari commandos. Tevos had assured her that in time the asari would throw their weight behind the Crucible project when the pair had met following the signing of what was being called the March Treaty by the press, though the councillor had said that it would take time. Shepard had always liked Tevos. The asari councillor had been one to support her actions while she had been chasing Saren, and although Tevos had questioned some of Shepard's more extreme decisions at times, it was only to get the Spectre's side of the picture, and she had often agreed with the measures afterwards.

In fact, during the short meeting Shepard had had with the Council in 2185 while chasing the Collectors, Tevos had let just a hint of remorse break through her voice when she was rebuking Shepard's claims, and afterwards she sent a short and simple message of support, explaining why the asari matriarchs were keeping her quiet on the issue following a severe downturn following the attack on the Citadel.

Still feeling angered over Irissa's actions, Shepard made her way back into the Normandy's War Room, meeting the eyes of those working in the chamber. Lieutenant Naylor, a young N7 who had joined the Normandy five days ago, had been called by the Spectre for a quick meeting before the Normandy was to dock with the salarian and turian ambassadorial vessels and host the war council.

"Commander, what can I do for you?"

"Ah, Lieutenant. I wanted to ask you a question, on your service history."

"What do you want to know?"

"How much experience have you had as an XO?"

"What?"

"It's a pretty simple question, Naylor. I need an XO on the Normandy and you're well suited for the task."

"I've had no formal positions as an XO, but I did do a temporary stint for two weeks on the Waterloo while she was limping back to the Citadel from the Armstrong Nebula."

"Well, you're it for now. For now, when I'm down on ground missions, I want you coordinating things from the War Room. Joker and EDI will continue to direct the Normandy as needed, so you can focus your efforts on supporting the ground missions. Enjoy the deep end." Shepard patted the Lieutenant on the shoulder as she passed him and left the War Room, making for her cabin to get ready for the upcoming negotiations.

* * *

"This krogan is in no position to make demands." Even before Shepard had entered the conference room, dressed in full dress uniform, the occupants were already at it. Dalatrass Linron, the salarian representative on the war council, had taken huge offence to the status and importance being afforded to the krogan during the summit, and she took particular offence to the representative they had sent.

"This krogan has a name: Urdnot Wrex. And I'm not just some junkyard varren you release when you're in trouble, salarian." Dressed in the same red armour that he had met Shepard in three years before, Urdnot Wrex's form dominated the small conference room, and Shepard knew that Linron was feeling threatened. A slight misplaced word could set Wrex off at any point when dealing with the salarians, and it was only Shepard's insistence in attending the council that had made him attend. As the Spectre walked in through the large glass doors, Wrex gave a nod to the Commander. "I've got my own problems. Reaper scouts have arrived on Tuchanka, so why should I care if a few turians go extinct?"

"Drawing out negotiations will only get more of our people killed, Wrex. I have no time for it." Victus stood at the head of the conference table, befitting his position given how Fedorian had called the war council. "Just tell us what you want and we can get down to business."

"I'll tell you what I need." When Wrex leaned down close to the side of the table, Shepard could easily guess what the krogan battlemaster wanted. She had seen it on Virmire, that same look. "A cure for the genophage." The krogan gave a wry smile as soon as he saw the immediate reaction from Linron, who jerked up in surprise and shock.

"Absolutely not!" Linron walked away from the table, dismissing the proposal with a wave of her hand. "The genophage is non-negotiable. We turned to the krogan in desperation, a rash decision at the time. It is the same mistake you are about to make today, Commander. No good can come of curing the genophage."

"The krogan have paid for their mistakes. The genohpage has gone on long enough."

"One thousand, four hundred and seventy six years almost to the day, if you're keeping track."

"We had a thousand years of peace, free from these brutes and their reckless aggression and expansion."

"ENOUGH!" Victus slammed his hand down on the table, breaking up the argument immediately. "Whether or not the krogan deserve a cure is the subject of an academic debate. This is war and as you say Dalatrass, the krogan are built for one thing – war. We promise there will be a cure, but the fact remains that it will take years to formulate one and we haven't got that kind of time."

"That's where you're wrong. My _information_ says otherwise." Wrex made his way over to where a miniature projector had been built into the conference table, a leftover from its days being used as a Quantum Entanglement Communicator when Cerberus had designed the vessel. "A salarian scientist named Maelon grew a conscious. He visited our planet and tested a cure on a group of females for the Weyrloc Clan. You, Shepard, stopped him."

"It was for the right reasons. His practices were flawed and he was doing it for the wrong people."

"I know. That was why I wanted you to. Regardless, a few females survived his experiments." The krogan pressed the play button on the projector's holographic control panel. The video was blurry, distorted, but clearly showed a salarian base with a group of females being held in stasis tanks. "What you don't know, is that the Dalatrass here found out, and sent in a team to capture them and clean up the whole damn mess."

"Where did you get this? It, it could be a fabrication!"

"Don't insult me, Dalatrass." Wrex pointed a stern finger towards Linron, the digit ending inches from her face. "Those are my people, they are immune to the genophage and I want them back!"

"Dalatrass, is this true?"

Linron scoffed. "How will curing the genophage benefit my people?"

"You need allies, Linron. Look at the map. The Reapers are attacking turian space as we speak and they're already sending scouts into the Krogan DMZ. Alliance space is currently being overrun as well, and the Reapers are poised to expand into the Attican Traverse. You're surrounded, ripe for the taking. How long do you think you'll last alone against the Reapers? Because if you don't help, that is how it will end up."

"And I'll be the last friendly turian you ever see." Shepard had to try and keep a snide remark of "If you see another one ever again" when Victus had finished.

"What will it be?" Linron's brow furrowed, her hand meeting her face and rubbing against her temples.

"The females are being held at an STG base on Sur'Kesh. But what you do now will be felt for centuries, millennia to come!"

"Then let's go." With a nod from Wrex, Shepard led the krogan out towards the security cordon. The commander only paused when she heard Linron's outburst behind her back as she walked through the glass doors and out into the corridor beside the conference room.

"Oh no. It will take time to grant you access to the base. You cannot just walk in like you own the-"

"It happens now. As a Council Spectre, Shepard is allowed to access your base and oversee the exchange of the females onto the Normandy. Or have you forgotten the rights afforded to those in the organisation you helped to found?" Victus followed Wrex and Shepard out through the security cordon, ignoring the salarian they had left on her own in the conference room.

"I will not forget this Commander! A bully has few friends when she needs them most!"

* * *

"Okay, we are live and linked up. Cortez, data is being transmitted to your shuttle in real time. Please confirm?"

"_We're getting information now, Normandy. Please complement EDI on her sensors."_

"_I am right here in the shuttle, Flight Lieutenant Cortez."_

"_Oh, I forgot. And it's Steve. Or Cortez. No ranks. I'm like that."_

"_Of course, Cortez."_ Naylor looked up from the holographic console he was in to see Victus approaching from the corridor through to the security cordon. With a nod to the turian, Naylor turned his attention back to the large display in front of him.

"This is a highly fascinating setup, Lieutenant."

"Thank you, Primarch. The Alliance didn't underestimate how much the Normandy would need it during their retrofits. Much of the equipment here was supposed to be for when Admiral Anderson used the vessel as his flagship while commanding the Seventh Fleet. Of course, he is currently engaged in the fighting on Earth, but we are using the technology well."

"Quite. Commander Shepard's shuttle is reaching the base at the moment, correct?"

"Aye, but we aren't receiving the kind of signals we'd expect from the base." Naylor reached down to cue the intercom between his station and the Normandy's bridge. "Traynor, can you or EDI try and isolate signals coming from the STG base from all the traffic we're receiving?"

"_We're noticing the same problem here, Lieutenant. I'll be just a tic."_

"A tic?"

"It's a phrase. Something about old clocks from a couple of centuries ago."

"Of course. I sometimes forget just how quickly humanity has advanced compared to the development of other species. Two centuries ago, we were in pretty much the same position as we are in now, minus the Reapers."

"If you don't mind me asking, sir, what do you think of the Crucible?"

"Now that I've had a chance to look at it? I'm sceptical like everyone else, and your commander and the prothean expert you have on the ship, T'Soni, said that they have yet to determine its purpose. The asari said come back in a month and she'd have a better clue. I'll be holding her to her word, however. What about you?"

The reply took Naylor by surprise, in that he hadn't been expecting Victus to ask him his own opinion back, but then the Primarch had been a popular man with his troops. Whether that meant he was the same kind of popular as an Alliance commander had remained to be seen, but evidently things were similar between species. "I'd agree on the sceptical bit too, sir, but I'm hopeful. It's a potential solution, we're adamant that it will work and my gut tells me that if we can deploy it, we'll be in with a chance." Naylor paused for a few seconds. "That's a very big if, though."

"Agreed. Hang on one second. VI?"

"_Yes, Primarch Victus?"_

"There is a significant amount of distortion coming from the lower levels of the base. Could you clear that up?"

"_I am unable to, Primarch. The distortion is the result of large explosions on the premises of the STG base."_

"What?" Naylor looked up at the display in surprise. Since the beginning of the deployment he had assumed that the moving icons on the screen, all the rich blue denoting that they were friendly, were simply the salarian forces at the base moving stuff around, fortifying the base for the inevitable arrival of the Reapers. It certainly looked that way, but looking closer there were obvious signs that fighting was taking place. Fast moving icons determining shuttles and gunships weaved looping arcs around the site, and a mess of icons representing ground forces locked in combat could be seen across the area. He inwardly cursed at not noticing this sooner.

"_Cerberus forces are attacking the STG base in large numbers. They are attempting to kill the krogan female we are transporting." _EDI paused for a moment, Naylor believing that the AI was having to divert more processing power from her hardware to boost the combat efficiency of her android body down on Sur'Kesh. Evidently so, given how the darker blue icon representing Shepard's team were almost surrounded by lighter blue icons having taken cover from the Spectre's unit. _"The Cerberus forces infiltrated the base through sleeper agents sending transmissions from outside the base's network. Their forces were designated as friendly and were allowed to approach the base before they opened fire and the sleeper agents detonated explosives within the perimeter."_

"How long has the attack been going on?"

"_About ten or so minutes, Lieutenant."_

"Fuck. Firth, what's been going on with our sensors?"

"The STG base is designed to block sensors recording data on the site. We've been trying to get the STG to allow us to get data on the location, but they haven't given us the correct access and ability to track our own units. In addition, atmospheric disturbances have been taking their toll. We have periodically been without data coming from the surface."

"You don't say. EDI, what's the situation there?"

"_Airspace around the base is firmly in Cerberus control, Lieutenant. Mantis gunships and Kodiak shuttles have control of the airspace."_

"And the krogan?"

"_Alive and well, but under fire."_

"Alright. Firth, get Flight Lieutenant Khan and the new guy Ores down to the hangar bay. Notify Sergeant Takeida, Corporal Atkins and Specialists Warwick and Anning to head down there pronto in full armour. I want a shuttle down in the base's airspace within ten minutes. Okay?"

"Sir." As Naylor quickly closed everything up in the War Room, he was intercepted by Victus before he could make for the armoury in the hangar bay.

"What is your plan here Lieutenant?"

"Cobras. Joker, you have the ship."

* * *

"_Alliance shuttle, this is STG Base Emerald. Your approach has been verified. Cerberus forces control the airspace around our position. Be alert."_

"Emerald, this is November Kilo Two. We copy. Beginning approach run now." Ores cut the communication channel as Khan swung the Kodiak down towards the landing pad. "Alright you guys, get your game faces on."

"Got it. Atkins, Takeida, roll the M-1s into positions." The two soldiers jumped to their stations, pulling the heavy turrets into their spaces in the Kodiak's doors. A feature secretly added in lieu of experiences taken from a black operations raid on a batarian facility in 2185, Alliance Kodiaks had been installed with twin M-1 Thunder turrets to provide them with additional firepower alongside two newly installed mass accelerator cannons at the front of the shuttle. The turrets, designed by the turians, were widely used around the galaxy, and the Alliance's use on Kodiaks was a nod to the old Blackhawk and Huey helicopters that carried machineguns and miniguns on their flanks in the 20th and 21st Centuries. But they were there because they could shred most light vehicles in a single burst, and they had proven hellishly useful in turian service against most Reaper targets, from the heavily armed brutes to the hordes of weak husks that the Reapers threw against defensive lines.

"Turrets are locked in place, LT."

"Good. Anning, Warwick. I want you two snipers using your Cobra missile launchers. Lock onto those damn gunships and knock them out of the skies. Takeida, Atkins, try not to shoot any of our actual allies."

"No promises sir." With a backhanded hit to Takeida's helmet, Naylor drew his own Cobra from his back and activated the guided missile inside. The missile usually fired in a dumb fire mode, where the missile would fly on a flat trajectory towards its target. When the missiles were set to their guided mode, the Cobra would fire a high powered laser pointer towards the target, painting it with a specific burn that the missile's warhead would lock onto and fly towards. The weapons were often the one thing that could turn the tide in combat, and the asari had taken aboard the Alliance's schematics and were beginning to mass produce the weapons alongside small arms in huge quantities. Though Shepard had said that Irissa had pulled out of the talks, which had angered Naylor and subsequently Tevos when they had talked during the war council, the councillor was definitely pleased with her efforts to extend the support that she had gotten the asari to give to the war effort.

"Okay, let's go for a test run. Gunship at two o'clock. Atkins, cover fire with the Thunder and wait for Anning's shot. Light him up." Naylor's heavy weapons specialist nodded, mashing his fingers into the butterfly trigger on the M-1 as it roared into life. A line of blue tracers stitched through the sky, covering the kilometre plus distance to the gunship in way under a second and sending sparks flying away as the rounds were slammed away by the gunship's kinetic barriers. Anning waited, lining up his shot perfectly, before his missile launcher fired. Two seconds later and the warhead exploded, tearing apart the gunship in a shower of debris.

"Takedown!"

"Shooting. Alright, Takeida, Atkins. Targets of opportunity are all around us. Go wild!" The Kodiak's sides lit up orange as the M-1s laid into the Cerberus units that they could see. Every minute or so, Anning and Warwick would fire their missiles, taking out the Cerberus air units quickly and efficiently. Naylor would flit between the two doors with his missile launcher, firing a few select shots towards Cerberus shuttles as they were preparing to disgorge their passengers into the fighting below. But the real treat in the situation was Khan.

Cortez had once said to Shepard how, in the right hands a pilot could make a Kodiak dance. Khan had been one of the pilots testing the Kodiak during its development, and with Cortez's skills as a fighter pilot the two had worked tirelessly since Menae to teach the other what they knew. It paid off – Khan's Kodiak weaved through the sky firing its mass accelerators at any Cerberus craft unlucky enough to be in his path, but he was still able to keep the shuttle so stable that the gunners at the side were still easily able to fire without their aim being thrown off balance. Already Ores had shouted back that they had notched up two kills in barely a minute, and that the shuttle was getting very near to the base's main loading bay.

"Anning, Warwick, you're with me. Takeida and Atkins, keep going against the gunships." Naylor stored his Cobra and drew his Mattock, slamming his helmet into place and watching as the HUD powered up and ran diagnostic checks. The base's ruined landing pad flew into view, the wreckage of a downed salarian Mantis gunship littering the floor. "Go!"

Warwick was first off the shuttle, still carrying his Cobra as he ran for the cover of a bed of plants at the opposite end of the open area. Anning too had his Cobra out and ready, but mid run he turned suddenly. As Naylor ran past him, the infiltrator raised his missile launcher and fired seemingly at nothing, joined a second later by Warwick. Their actions paid off when a Cerberus Mantis swung round the mountain overlooking the base and ran straight into the path of the missiles. The gunship smashed into the floors above the loading bay, sending its wreckage scything over the area. Naylor reacted quickly as one piece flew straight towards him, diving backwards as the twisted metal slammed into the floor barely a metre from where he had been standing. "FUCK THAT!"

"_Naylor, is your team on the ground?"_

"Aye Shepard, I've got two marines and myself holding the landing pad and another pair shooting Cerberus vehicles out of the sky." Naylor was pleased to hear Shepard over the radio – there had been no contact while they were on the Normandy or while they were on approach to the base, and a small part of Naylor, the unconfident and pessimistic part he loathed, thought that the Commander had been slain by the overwhelming Cerberus numbers in the base. "Warwick, take Anning and secure the cargo elevator."

"Aye aye, sir."

"_Fan-fucking tastic, Lieutenant. We'll be up in a second." _As if on cue, the cargo elevator rose up from below the ground, revealing the stasis pod containing their mystery female krogan. Shepard's team arrived soon after, climbing up an emergency exit ladder from the depths of the station. The Spectre's N7 armour was battered, the metal buckled and twisted in places, but she was fit and well. Garrus and EDI were also showing signs of damage, but neither were too seriously wounded to stop fighting.

Unfortunately, as Shepard's team arrived, so did another Cerberus team. With Khan's Kodiak currently flying around the airspace deliberately looking for trouble, the Cerberus shuttle was able to sneak through to deliver its cargo before being smashed up by a missile fired from an STG unit still holding on on the far side of the base. A squad of assault troopers and two black-clad engineers fanned out, targeting the already battered stasis pod with their weapons. But with Shepard's team on one side, Naylor's on the other, the troopers were caught in a vicious crossfire that they were not expecting. The final coup de grâce was when Khan's Kodiak flew back into view and Takeida fired a single Cobra missile into the centre of the Cerberus troopers. Given how gunships were taken down in a single hit, there wouldn't be much left to bury. Shepard made her way quickly towards the cargo pod, opening the stasis chamber and releasing the female krogan from the medical harness she had been placed in. Mordin, in a distinctly gentlemanly fashion, gave the krogan a hand getting down from the pod to the floor, which she took.

"Naylor, get Cortez down here with Wrex. We have our krogan."

* * *

Mordin had set himself up in the medbay very quickly following the debriefing after Sur'Kesh. Adopting the name Eve for the krogan, in lieu of her normal name, Mordin had first set about monitoring her situation and boosting her damaged immune system from Maelon's treatments before moving on to doing some careful analysis of the changes afforded to overcome the genophage. While the methods used to test it were barbaric, Maelon's solution was actually very efficient and refined, much like the genophage itself. The genophage altered the probability of every possible pregnancy being viable, reducing it such that an effective rate would be one live birth out of every thousand possible pregnancies. Some krogan babies would die in stillbirth, the often-used image of anti-genophage campaigners amongst the asari community, but the vast majority, 99 percent, would not even reach that stage of foetal development such that they would even be fully developed, and thus the krogan system flushed them out as waste.

Maelon's solution was a modification of the original genophage strain which altered the altered rate of possible pregnancies to improve the chances of a live birth. In practice, Mordin said, it would only lead to one in a hundred live births, but given that it represented a tenfold increase in the number of possible births, it was at least a start. The salarian wanted to keep this from Wrex, but Shepard was adamant that the krogan would have to know that Eve, and those that had also been altered before their weakened immune systems gave out, were not immune per se, and just less affected by the genophage as their fellow females were. The krogan, breaking all expectations, was still happy about the situation, envisioning further work that would alter the krogan again and again in the same fashion to, over time, negate the effects of the genophage.

Unfortunately, hopes of an immediate deployment of the krogan to Palaven, and the turians granting help for the Alliance were dashed when Mordin revealed that the work he _had_ to do would take at least a month, if not longer, to complete. The issue over the weakened immune system had to be addressed, otherwise all krogan would eventually die no matter what due to the fierce ecosystem on Tuchanka being naturally aggressive. Nobody wanted them to become the new quarians.

The second issue was how Maelon, despite working with Mordin's team on altering and enhancing the genophage, had been working with the old strain of the virus, and as such the cure would result in a short period of the higher birth rate before the altered strain would overwhelm and restore the balance in a cruel biological case of _status quo ante bellum. _Mordin would require time and resources to work against this, and with support from the salarians pretty much out of the question, Mordin would need to work on krogan tissue samples that he could get quickly. Wrex brashly volunteered for this role.

In the debriefing, Hackett had said that this would be a major coup for the Alliance if the krogan were brought into the war alongside the turians. As they travelled towards Eden Prime, where supposedly Cerberus had uncovered something of incredible value, Shepard hoped to prove him right.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N**: I'm uploading this late. Again. I blame my friends who dragged me into a game of Genius: The Transgression. Seeing as how the people in that game made their mad scientist characters mainly based off of games and TV series (someone was basically a human version of Mordin!), and I had to find a character in a few minutes before everything kicked off, I found myself taking the role of one Liara T'Soni. Because, in a game of mad scientists doing madder things, who doesn't want to be a biotic archaeologist at the head of an information broker's network?

I'll be making a few major jumps ahead in the game's timeline a number of times through the story. It's pretty much a cop out so that I don't have to go through most of the missions and moments aboard the Normandy, seeing as we all know the general gist of what happens, and I'm going to concentrate on the bits that make my story far more different to that of Mass Effect 3.

Instead, given how my story's already different from canon, I'll do a short round up of things that have happened to start the chapters after those jumps. Annoyingly, however, writing a fictional account as if it's a brief history is rather difficult. Thank heavens for the works of Beevor and Hastings*…

* * *

**Day Thirty Three. Tuchankan orbit, Krogan DMZ**

Thirty three days have passed since the Reapers arrived over Earth. Close to five weeks where victories for the Reapers on the major worlds have been constant, and victories for any of the allied races have been few and far between.

As part of the terms of the agreement between Shepard and Tevos, and the subsequent drafting of a treaty with Ambassador Osoba, the Alliance had deployed the First and Third Fleets, along with damaged vessels from the Fifth, into asari space, securing supply lines for the asari at a time when their fleets were only just beginning to muster. The asari had ten fleets, but only the Home (or First) Fleet, deployed around Thessia, was at any state of readiness. After Tevos had announced the agreement to the matriarchal council, a number of the matriarchs had feared that the Alliance deployment would make the asari a target for Reaper attack, but in the days since, the only test their fleets and the Alliance had faced were from the first few ships unexpectedly fleeing the Terminus Systems in search of safer harbour, entering asari space via the Crescent Nebula in a blind hurry. The asari provided what help they could to civilians, and already refugee camps for asari families had been set up across Thessia and the major colony worlds, with families of other races being relocated to colonies that could support them or to the Citadel.

Elsewhere for the Alliance, the prothean super weapon, dubbed the Crucible by the engineers working on it, was being constructed deep within Alliance space at the newly built Nova Station, the Alliances' new temporary base of operations, in a system within the Argos Rho cluster that was not connected via any Mass Relays to the wider network. Ships approached it via conventional, and thus pretty much untraceable, FTL travel, and as such it was easily hidden from the Reapers in a sector they bypassed, no habitable worlds, space stations or asteroid mining facilities in the region to draw their attention. So it came to pass that the greatest threat to the Reapers was hidden from them in the middle of an expanse of space they simply did not pay attention to.

However, for the victories in getting work on the Crucible going and the agreement between Tevos and Shepard, the Alliance, and the wider galaxy for that matter, was still on the back foot. The Reapers, after hitting Earth and Arcturus, had attacked the major Alliance colonies, including Terra Nova and Benning, as well as a Cerberus attack on the world of Eden Prime where, after Shepard's intervention, a casket containing a living Prothean was found in one of the excavation sites around the planet. Most of the other, minor colonies in Alliance space, including Shanxi and Tiptree among others, were hit by minor Reaper forces, scouting fleets probing for centres of Alliance resistance still holding out. Other scouts had been sent into the Horse Head Nebula, edging closer towards Salarian space, while most of the clusters and nebulae in the Attican Traverse were seeing Reaper scout vessels flying the mass relays in the systems, the main Reaper forces leapfrogging up the galaxy behind them.

The only major actions that the Alliance was able to undertake in their own space were the liberation of Eden Prime, where Cerberus was evicted from the planet by the colonists only for the Reapers to invade with almost immediately afterwards, and a series of counter-attacks around Benning, who's orbit was cleared of Reaper forces for a short period to allow the Alliance time to move civilians to strong points and deploy more forces onto the planet itself. Everywhere, though, Alliance vessels were being thrown back kilometre by kilometre.

The Turian Hierarchy, however, had been feeling the brunt of the Reaper's latest advances, one of the two huge arms of the Reaper advance smashing into turian space in the Aethon Cluster and spearing straight towards the Apien Crest, destroying Taetrus before attacking and besieging Palaven after a brief few days of naval combat. Shepard, after rendezvousing at Nova Station with the surviving Alliance commanders, had gone to Palaven's moon, Menae, to rescue the turian Primarch, Victus, after his predecessor had been killed. With turian forces bogged down in their home systems and being pushed back everywhere else, Victus, now based on the Normandy, had given a promise of turian ships and forces for Hackett's assembling fleets in return for Krogan support on Palaven and other turian warzones, and had continued with the plans of his predecessor, the late Primarch Fedorian, to call a war council between the galaxy's races, to debate how best to deal with the Reaper threat.

The asari, with their mobilisation underway already with the Alliance's help, did not attend the war council, instead throwing what commando units they could into the Attican Traverse and Alliance space, delaying Reaper forces on smaller colonies while civilians were evacuated. Despite already supporting the Alliance, Irissa made it perfectly clear to Shepard her view on how curing the genophage would prove ghastly for the galaxy in the long run in a heated debate over the Normandy's QEC. When Naylor heard of this and passed the knowledge on to Tevos, the councillor laughed at how the traditional asari "long view" was still ingrained in Irissa's thinking, when it could be that the ambassador would be brutally killed at any moment if the Reapers attacked the Citadel. The elcor and volus also declined to attend, the latter delegating their role in the negotiations to the turians owing to their client race status to the turians. Most alarmingly, however, was the lack of communication from the hanar and, by extension, the drell. Shepard had looked into this with a former colleague, Kasumi Goto, but many of the signs pointed to indoctrination running within the ranks of officials of the Illuminated Primacy.

While the war council still deliberated over the course of action that the galaxy should take, and what would happen for the krogan, the Normandy was in orbit over Tuchanka, where Mordin Solus was preparing a cure for the genophage.

* * *

Naylor was sitting at one of the tables in the mess hall, trying not to grimace at the foul taste of the concoction (mockingly called a 'ready to eat meal') that was sitting in front of him as 'dinner' at the end of another long day shift. The meal was more akin to the food an Astronaut of the 21st century than the refined culinary tastes of the 22nd century, vacuum packed, dehydrated food substances designed to contain the right levels of calories, proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Somewhere along the line someone had decided that giving the rations an "acceptable taste" was too cost-prohibitive and thrown that idea into the trash can, forever dooming Alliance soldiers to the foulness of what was referred to by servicemen and marines alike as "the devil's food".

"Damn this shite. I'm not complaining, but I wish we had Gardner back from the days when we were chasing after the Collectors."

"Kenneth, you're complaining! Again!" Engineers Kenneth Donnelly and Gabriella Daniels were two very recent re-acquisitions for the Normandy's crew. Ex-Cerberus, they had been imprisoned on the Citadel by the Alliance when Shepard had given herself up after the events in the Viper Nebula, but Admiral Hackett had offered them a reinstatement on the Normandy following the attack on Earth, a procedure helped along by Shepard's status as a Council Spectre. Now they were serving alongside Chief Engineer Adams' crew of five down in the Engineering deck, keeping the ship running at optimal capacity on a relentless eight-hour on, eight-hour off cycle. "What do you think, Lieutenant?"

"I think MREs are crap, Daniels. I sometimes swear this stuff's siphoned off from the Citadel's protein vats and squeezed into a plastic bag." The two engineers laughed in unison, Naylor smiling as he forced another mouthful of the food down. Humour was something that the crewmembers aboard the Normandy all divulged in; particularly Shepard and the not-VI, EDI, but there were a few exceptions to that trend. One of those such people was the Prothean, Javik, although James Vega and Garrus Vakarian had tried to remedy that. Another one was clearing some of the discarded detritus from meals on the table away to take the sole available seat in front of him – the asari archaeologist, Liara T'Soni. Liara had barely been seen since she had arrived on the Normandy, locking herself away in the old Executive Officer's cabin off the mess hall and, given some of the power drawn by whatever was in the room, seemed to be working day and night on projects. Even though Naylor would, to others, claim he was not an expert on asari, he did know enough so that he could tell that the doctor sitting in front of him was exhausted. Her body language was off, lazily playing around with her food, pushing it into assorted piles with her fork and sighing almost every time she did so, while her face was showing every sign of over-exhaustion. "Hey, Doctor, are you okay?"

"What, oh, I am sorry Lieutenant. Yes, I'm fine." The doctor's head rose for a few moments as she spoke, before dropping down to stare more holes into her food. Knowing that to press any more questions would get the same disheartened and lethargic response, Naylor gathered his empty tray and dumped the remaining scraps of the 'meal' into a waste disposal bin, before sliding the tray into a free spot inside the automated cleaning machine. Turning back towards the mess table, Naylor walked straight into Commander Shepard, who had been making her way from seeing Garrus Vakarian, who was working inside the main battery.

"Sorry, Lieutenant!"

"Sorry, Commander! Didn't see you there." Both blurted out apologies, at the same time, an awkward silence descending between the two of them before Shepard smiled, patting the Lieutenant on his shoulder and continuing on. Naylor began walking back to the elevator himself, before calling out after the commander. "Hey, Commander. You mind if I have a word?"

"Sure, Lieutenant. What's on your mind?" Shepard walked back over, resting her elbows on the worktop of the small island in the kitchen area of the mess hall.

"It's Doctor T'Soni. She looked rather out of it when I saw her in the mess hall a few minutes ago." Naylor's voice was kept low, leaning in towards the commander to keep what he was saying out of reach of the rest of the crew in the mess hall.

"I didn't know you were a trained psychiatrist, lieutenant. You studying for another job with all your free time?" Shepard joked, cocking an eyebrow before smiling. Naylor didn't grin, keeping his body language neutral until Shepard realised that he was, in fact, deadly serious about the situation. Changing almost immediately, the Spectre's demeanour switched from the usual playful self into the serious 'Commander' mode. "So what is it?"

"She looks like she's exhausting herself, Commander. I mean, I have no idea what she's doing in her office, but I know that she'll need a proper rest in the next few days or she'll start dropping out in the middle of a hallway or inside a room that only _select_ people have access to." Naylor's last comment reminded Shepard of how the asari's office was locked to everyone bar Liara herself and Shepard, who rarely went into the room herself. If the asari passed out in that part of the ship, it would likely be a long time before anyone would be able to open the door and let Dr Chakwas get access. Naylor even suspected that EDI didn't have control over the door's overrides either.

"I see. Thanks for that, Lieutenant, I'll look into it." As Naylor walked off, Shepard peered across the mess hall towards Liara, sitting at the furthest of the tables from where she stood. She saw what Naylor had seen at the table before, the asari's face and body language showing clear signs of exhaustion and fatigue. Shepard noted that the areas underneath her eyes were particularly similar to when she first encountered the scientist on Illium – shadows were forming there, the skin looking almost dead, and the eyes seeming to bulge out from the rest of her skull. Shepard walked over to the table, quickly nodding to the few crewmen and women in the mess hall that still adhered to the protocol of saluting superior officers, something the commander despised.

"Hey, Liara. Are you okay?" Shepard slid into the seat that Naylor had vacated a few seconds ago. Liara was sitting there alone; Ken and Gabby having returned to the engineering deck a few seconds after Naylor had left.

"I am fine, Shepard. Lieutenant Naylor asked me the same question a few minutes ago. I said to him that I was okay as well." The asari looked back at her food, pushing the tray away across the table from her before beginning to stand up and leave her seat. "Now if you don't mind, I will best be-"

"Liara, sit. Please. You're looking absolutely exhausted and you're not eating properly. Please, talk to me about this. What is going on?" Shepard was insistent, Liara's defiance folding quickly when the asari dropped back in to her seat once more, slumping exhaustedly.

"Goddess, Shepard, I don't know what to do about it. All the work I have to do mounts up. I used to have Feron and automated systems cover for me when I was on the old Shadow Broker's ship, but Feron is now in the field, I have half the processing power that I need and I have all this work to do on the Prothean super weapon as well. I'm tired, Shepard, really tired." Liara sighed, massaging the corners of her eyebrow markings as she sat there deflated.

"Listen, Liara, I need you to do this one thing for me." When Liara looked up at her, Shepard continued. "Find someone to cover for you on one of the ship's three shifts, okay?" The reaction that that brought out was louder than Shepard expected, several crewmembers turning their heads to see what was going on.

"What?" Liara bolted upright in her seat, noticing afterwards the attention of the other members of the crew at the same time as Shepard, before instantly lowering her voice and leaning across the table. "Shepard, the network's security could be compromised!"

"We've vetted everyone on this crew, Liara, and EDI is monitoring all communications out of the ship."

"But what about Cerberus installing sleeper agents on the Normandy? You saw what they did on Mars." Shepard let her silence be her answer, dismissing the possibility. She was certain that, were there to be a sleeper agent installed on the Normandy, Javik would have smelled it before the danger arrived. "What if Cerberus gains access to anything that I have stored in that cabin? This could reverse everything we've done over the past four weeks!"

"Liara, you _need_ to get someone to take over your network while you rest. And I will bet my life that Cerberus won't get access to your network."

"Is that something you are willing to test, Commander?"

"No, but my point remains the same. Cerberus won't get access through the cover you get. I am sure of it."

Liara deflated, shoulders slumping down as she began staring into her lap. "Fine, Shepard. I could use your help in finding someone – I cannot really say that I know anyone from the normal crew that would possess the skills that I need. But I need them to be trustworthy!"

Shepard looked around the crewmembers still in the mess hall, realising that she couldn't really vouch for them. Traynor had technical skills that would suffice for Liara's needs, but her role was too important to take her away from it. Only Garrus was really someone she could count on, but he was busy with moulding the Normandy's gunnery crews into shape and couldn't be taken away from that critical role. Then she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a glimpse of someone that she had a hunch could work. "I think I have an idea of who we could ask."

* * *

"Commander, what can I do for you?"

"Naylor, how good are your analytical skills?"

"As good as those of most people. Why do you ask?"

"Can you follow me for a second? I may have an additional job for you to do." Shepard grinned as she led Naylor away from the elevator and back onto the crew deck. As they wound their way through the last of the people that were still eating in the mess hall, Naylor began to grow inquisitive.

"So, what exactly is this job you have lined up, then?"

"I can't say, at least not out here." The way that the commander talked made Naylor slightly nervous. "All I can say is that you'll need to adjust to the evening shift rota."

"Hang on, why do I need to move to the evening shift? I'm on the morning shift at the moment."

"And I need you on the evening shift for this job. Look, I can't say why, just trust me when I say that the job you'll be doing is incredibly important." Shepard turned out of the mess hall, walking straight towards the door to an office that Naylor had barely even gone near to in his time on the Normandy.

"Commander, why are we going towards Doctor T'Soni's office?"

"Because of what you pointed out to me a few minutes ago. Liara needs to rest, and you're probably the only guy on this ship outside of my ground team, Joker, EDI and Chakwas that I can trust enough for the job you're about to get." Shepard pressed her hand onto the door's hologram, the symbol quickly blinking for a few seconds before opening up. As he looked inside, Naylor's breath got hitched in his mouth. Liara stood hunched, eyes lidded and bloodshot, over a computer terminal, in front of a wall covered with a huge array of computer screens and dozens of snaking cables down to the floor. The rest of the room was dominated by computer servers, another computer terminal and more screens, the atmosphere inside substantially different to the rest of the ship, hot air being vented from every single piece of tech within the room. At the far end was a simply furnished section evidently where Liara would spend her nights sleeping. A simple bed, a few containers for clothes and a small bathroom and shower to one side.

"Alert! Unidentified person in the room. Initiating countermeasures." Liara's head snapped up at the VI drone's warning, eyes opening wide and looking straight towards Naylor and Shepard at the door to the office, occasionally glancing at Glyph's terminal. She turned away from the terminal she was working on, quickly closing down a window on the screen and positioning herself in front of where she was working. The drone had activated a small taser, and was aiming it in Naylor's direction. A small, testing shot leapt out, Naylor flinching quickly away from the shock by way of instinct. "Oh! Glyph, disengage the countermeasures." The drone deactivated the taser, retreating back to the docking station that he recharged in. "Shepard, why have you brought Staff Lieutenant Naylor into my office?"

"I said we should find someone to cover for you. I think Naylor here is someone who can do that."

"Shepard, I mean no disrespect but Lieutenant Naylor is a soldier. Does he even possess the kind of skills that I would need for someone to cover this?" Shepard nodded, even though she didn't know much about the lieutenant's history outside of his normal Alliance file. "And do you trust the Lieutenant?" Shepard nodded again. "Then I hope your trust isn't misplaced." Liara motioned for Naylor and Shepard to enter the room. The lieutenant stared around the place almost in shock. He knew from talking to Daniels and Donnelly that there was a _lot_ of power being drawn to the room, but seeing it first hand he realised just _how_ much. The entire room glowed from the monitors, and he understood now how Liara, even when sleeping, could not get much good rest with all the terminals online. He then realised just how bad Liara's situation was, staring at the extremely bright screens for hours on end. "Shepard, I think I can brief the Lieutenant on what I need him to do. Unless you have anything else?"

"Nope. That's all, Liara. Make sure you get some rest, okay?"

"I will try Shepard." The commander walked out of the door, leaving Liara and Naylor alone inside the room. The asari led Naylor over to the furthest computer terminal, where she had set a complex translation algorithm to work automatically, allowing Liara to work on other projects. "Seeing as Shepard is insistent that I stop myself from working constantly, I'm enlisting your help to cover everything I have running here. This terminal here is running a translation algorithm for some of the more elaborate parts of the Crucible's designs. Periodically it will finish translating a portion of the designs. When that happens, I want you to encode it using these encryption keys and add it to the next data packet that we will be sending out when we next pass a comm. buoy. When you do that, you'll be able to add the designs to the data packet normally, with your Alliance authorisation codes, but you'll need a password to activate the encryptions – the password is 'Benezia'." Naylor studied the instructions he was given, mentally noting down the passwords that Liara told him that he would be using.

"So it's a case of adding encryption and cueing the then-encrypted data to be sent?"

"Yes. Each portion of the Crucible's shouldn't take that long to translate, but there are a lot of them. As a little bit of side work, if you can skim each portion of the design for anything regarding the effects of the weapon, I would be grateful." Liara walked over to the next set of terminals. "These two terminals are the main thing I'll have you concentring on during the next shift. Before I can get to talking about that, though, there is something that I have to tell you, in the strictest of confidence."

"You have my word, Doctor. I-"

"Please, call me Liara, Lieutenant."

"Of course, Doctor. In that case, I'd prefer it if you called me Naylor instead. Or, given that that can just sound weird, Peter."

"Peter, you called me Doctor again."

"Sorry, _Liara_. You have my word that I will not tell a soul. Go on?"

"Of course. You can tell what I'm about to say to Garrus, EDI, Joker, Doctor Chakwas and Shepard, but I'd prefer it if you kept things rather quiet." Liara turned to the terminals she was standing beside. "These terminals and the main two servers behind you are connected to the network of an information broker, collating information throughout the galaxy from a huge array of sources. It is the central hub of the largest network throughout the galaxy." Naylor was about to ask whether Liara was referring to the same network with which she had run an information brokerage on Illium a few years before when the final comment caught his attention. He had come into contact with an employee of her company during a previous assignment, a job alongside one Tela Vasir on Nasum.

"Hang on, a second. Did you just say it was the largest in the galaxy? I thought your company was- wait. Thelargest in the galaxy? _The largest in the galaxy?_ That means that…"

"This goes nowhere out of this room, Lieutenant. I'm the Shadow Broker."

Liara made the mistake of blinking as she admitted who she was behind the façade of the scientist, and by the time she opened her eyes, she had no time to react to what was coming next. Naylor clenched his fists, anger boiling up before he lunged at the asari, pinning her against the wall with a forearm to the throat. "You're the _Shadow Broker._ You killed ten of the bodyguards of Councillor Tevos! More than that, you killed ten of my _friends_!" He spat the words out, betraying the sudden build up of rage as the asari struggled in front of him.

Caught off guard, Liara was scared, pinned against the wall by the far stronger human lieutenant and struggling to. Given that he called a number of asari commandos, bodyguards of the asari councillor 'friends', she realised that to try and defuse the situation using biotic techniques she had learnt from two of her mother's commandos, Shiala and Fela, back in her youth would end with her in a far worse situation. In her head, Liara pleaded. _'Please don't kill me, please don't kill me'._ Her heart beat frantically against her chest in fear. "Peter, wha-what in the Goddess' name are you talking about?" In the situation she was in, her words were barely audible, a wheeze thanks to her throat being slowly but surely crushed. But the wheeze was enough to make him relent by a small amount, the pressure on her neck lifting ever so slightly, but enough for air to fill her lungs.

"Last year, on the salarian colony of Nasum, the Shadow Broker attempted to sway Tela Vasir to work as an agent within the Spectres. He tried to convince her to work with him with intelligence on the slaver group she had been fruitlessly hunting down over the past few months, at that point with my rather reluctant help as a sort of gun-for-hire. When she double crossed the Shadow Broker, obtaining the intelligence and then busting the slavers, the Broker attacked the bait we were using to draw out the slavers – Councillors Anderson and Tevos, who were legitimately there on a diplomatic trip, but willing to help Vasir's operation. The Broker's mercenaries summarily _executed _ten of Tevos' twelve guards, ten good friends of mine, and would have killed Tevos next, were it not for Tela arriving at the last possible minute. I saved two others, Serenya and Mallene, who had been captured earlier and taken to a room along with different hostages. But _you_ ordered them to die!"

"No! No, I didn't!"

"I wouldn't run it past the Shadow Broker to lie." Naylor spat his reply vehemently, eyes narrowing to little slits.

"Please, listen to me! You know that Spectre Vasir pledged to find and kill the Shadow Broker after what he had done on Nasum, tried to force her to do! She made that pledge in front of everyone who survived the attack, and your name is there. She helped Commander Shepard, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy and I take down the old Shadow Broker, a yagh of all things, a few months after the attack on Nasum! I took the network over then, repurposing it towards defeating the Reapers. I did not kill your friends. Goddess knows what possessed _him_ to do so." Naylor's crushing grip on Liara's neck withdrew completely, the asari sliding down and away at the first possible opportunity, dusting herself off after she dropped to the floor.

"So, you didn't kill them." Naylor's voice was cracking slightly, his eyes beginning to slightly water. He blinked away the tears before they could fall, turning away from the asari as he asked the question.

"Oh, Goddess no! I couldn't ever conceive doing such a thing!"

"And you killed the bastard responsible?"

"With my own biotics." Liara snarled. When the lieutenant didn't respond, Liara began to recall the death of the previous Shadow Broker. "The yagh was annihilated when I destroyed the glass casing on a container of plasma he was standing under. It took a long while to get rid of the plasma. The yagh's remains, not so."

"Then you deserve my apologies, Liara. I didn't know, I just-" Liara stepped forward, planting a comforting hand on his shoulder, gently stroking his upper arm. "Thanks. I'm so sorry that I did all that. It's just that I wanted to join Vasir on her chase, to find out who had killed people that I would have trusted with my life and to end his, but I was shackled by orders and my own fucking self-discipline. Now that the bastard's dead, I can lay everything on that day to rest."

"Its fine, Peter. Now, could we get back to the matter at hand?" When Naylor nodded, she continued. "These terminals connect to the network. I'm not authorising you to make any orders on my behalf, simply make notes of anything major that doesn't require immediate attention and I can review them myself. If there is anything absolutely important, that either Glyph flags as requiring direct action or that simply cannot be ignored, I want you to wake me up immediately. If you see fit, take any action that Glyph recommends."

"How can a VI recommend stuff? I know EDI's an AI, but Glyph seems a normal VI drone." At the mention of his name, the VI drone Liara referred to as 'Glyph' popped into existence between the two of them, his holographic emitter hovering at the pair's head height.

"Greetings, Lieutenant. Doctor T'Soni has upgraded me with salarian prototype software from Sur'Kesh, allowing me to analyse information streams and provide advice within preset parameters."

"Peter, if you require Glyph to recommend actions, I would still make any necessary adjustments to what he recommends if they seem too insensitive."

"Will do."

"In that case, I shall retire for the night. Well, night shift. Remember – encrypt and send the Crucible designs, note down everything important that crosses the Broker terminal, and alert me or take actions that Glyph recommends if anything that requires immediate action occurs. Is that okay?"

"Got it." Naylor thought it better to not wish the asari a good night, given that it wasn't really 'night' at the moment and he knew he had been treading a very fine line with the events of the past few minutes. "I'll see you at the start of the next shift."

* * *

**A/N**: I always liked Tela Vasir. Personally I feel she got too short a time in the game, even as an enemy, and I thought that it was never really in the spirit of Mass Effect to not have a way of talking her down from trying to kill Liara or sway her onto Shepard's side. Aside from the epic "A Few Personal Favours" the only stories here are those where Shepard has/has had sex with Vasir and as such doesn't kill her. I just wanted to give Vasir a chance…

So Naylor and Liara finally are finally beginning to get to know each other at long last (I say long, it may only have been five chapters since the start, but in the story thirty days have passed and Liara's been barricading herself in her office since then. Her computer systems must have some hench hardware to be running all that tech for hours on end…).

I'm finally starting to get to the point where I can start to get Naylor's history out there, something that I wanted to do really quickly so that I wasn't going to be falling into the trap of revealing things at random moments during the story (that will still happen, but those things will be really trivial). Chapter six won't exactly be the _entire_ history of the his twenty four year life, but most of it will be put out there in the form of Liara doing some pretty good digging into both his pre-Alliance past and his Alliance service history. But what will the Shadow Broker find in the lieutenant's past? And will she find out about the lieutenant and the councillor? I'm aiming to have that up tomorrow at some point.

* - [Antony] Beevor and [Max] Hastings are two widely renowned British historians. I've read most of their work on World War II, and its damn good stuff…


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** This is a mammoth of a chapter this time. I still don't understand where these words appear from. I mean, I only aim for these to be round about 4,000 words long, but all of them, aside from Chapter 1, seem to just absorb words from thin air!

Liara's been doing some massive digging into the past of my OC, so be prepared for an onslaught of text later on in the chapter. Naylor's history isn't pivotal to the rest of the story, but it better explains some of the his past. Amersham is a real place, full of real people and a massive lack of mobile internet.

**A/N 2: **I edited back in a couple of minor grammar changes and reintroduced a bit at the end of the story that I cut thinking it wasn't good, before thinking it was actually quite good...

* * *

**Day Thirty Four. Tuchankan Orbit, Krogan DMZ**

Naylor's attention was torn from the terminal he was sitting in front of as his omni-tool blinked, indicating the message that he had just received over his extranet messaging account. Spinning around in the chair he was sitting in and away from the terminal, Naylor caught a glimpse of the sleeping asari on the double bed at the back of the room. Liara was in what could only be described as the recovery position, her right hand currently being crushed between the side of her head and the mattress. Laughing to no one in particular, Naylor knew that, when she woke up, the asari was going to have a bad, or at the least annoying time while trying to use that particular limb. Calling up his omni-tool via a mental command, he opened the message that he had just received.

_Kori,_

_I very nearly threw Irissa into the wall with my biotics today. She had the gall to say that we should shackle Shepard for her actions to cure the genophage, despite the fact that both Councillor Sparatus and I have given him our support to do so. Maybe she deserved it. Maybe I'm losing the self control I thought I had. But we can't afford to lose the help of any race in this war._

_I hope you can swing by soon. Goddess knows that I just need someone to talk to who isn't always there with an ulterior motive._

_Stay safe. I pray for your safe return._

_Tevos_

Naylor leant back into the chair he was sitting in, smiling at Tevos' message while waiting for the fifth design package to finish encrypting. It was seven hours into the eight hour-long shift, and he'd been up for nearly twenty three of the twenty four hours of the past day. The designs had barely let up any secrets to _what_ the Crucible would do when it was activated. Liara, before she had turned in, had passed him a quickly scrawled note asking him to look for any mention of something the Protheans referred to on their design as 'The Catalyst'. So far, he had seen very little that would suggest what it was, only that it was mentioned a number of times in various places.

Naylor stood himself up and walked from the decryption terminal to the terminal connected to the Shadow Broker's network, opening a reply to Tevos' message and tapping away.

_Celia,_

_I expect we'll be going back to the Citadel soon. I will try and make time to come by, but it may be quite a brief visit._

_I can't say I'm not surprised that Irissa still doesn't support Shepard's plan to cure the Genophage. We could be taking an extreme risk, but we can't afford to lose the support of an entire species like the Krogan._

_Hope to see you soon. _

_Peter_

Naylor closed his omni-tool, turning his attention back to the terminal in front of him. With respect to the Broker's network, the night had been, as Glyph noted, rather quiet in comparison to others. The reports on Reaper advances on planets such as Palaven and other human and turian colonies pointed always to the implacable advance of the Reaper forces, but a good portion of the news that Naylor read from Liara's agents was actually positive. A series of operations by Alliance reinforcements on Benning had stopped the Reaper advance cold, and the synthetics had lost three Destroyers and countless husks and other monstrosities in the fighting, while the Turians on the planet of Digeris had thrown the small Reaper forces sent there back far enough to force them to abandon their invasion attempts.

However, in the past half hour worrying information had been delivered from the planet of Illium, in the Crescent Nebula, and Naylor was undecided as to whether he should wake Liara up and hand the situation over to her. While the leading edge of the Reapers' northern advance was still inside the Attican Traverse, the Reapers were already working within the Terminus Systems, spreading chaos and panic even though their advance would be a long, long way away from the planets there. The 'Gateway to the Terminus Systems' was reporting that refugee transports from the Terminus systems were arriving through the relay into the Tasale system and not responding to any hails or threats from the planet's defence fleet. When asari commandos boarded the first of the vessels, what they found would mark the events as being a form of Reaper psychological warfare. Asari and salarian refugees were hung from walls and killed, their bodies left to rot, while turian, human and batarian refugees were converted into their Reaperised form, husks, cannibals and marauders catching the commandos unawares and attacking them straight from the moment they stepped onto the transports. The first few ships were cleansed, but at a high body count for the world's defence forces, and in future any other ship that didn't answer was to be immediately disabled on sight. The effect caused morale to plummet on Illium after pictures of the brutalised bodies of slain commandos, civilians hanging from the walls of their ships and tales of horror from the few survivors of the commandos' first waves surfaced on the extranet.

"Glyph, what measures does Doctor T'Soni have in place on Illium for a situation like this?"

"As the situation has been flagged as a pre-emptive strike by Reaper forces, Doctor T'Soni has in place plans for the evacuation of civilians as well as the donation of several pieces of military-grade fusion weaponry and several frigate-sized armed transports to the Illium Defence Force."

"Thanks Glyph. I'll flag the latter for review later, but I would suggest that you activate the measures for civilian evacuation. Do you have colonies where the civilians can be sent?"

"Cyone is the main colony that Doctor T'Soni suggested they be sent to. We have an agreement from Matriarch Sarana that refugees will be housed in temporary facilities that are being set up on that world. The Alliance has also used the Kypladon system as a base of operations since the fall of Earth and Arcturus Station."

"Excellent. It should be pretty safe that way. Glyph, can you organise that, but if Liara believes otherwise, be ready to countermand them."

"Countermand what?" Liara's sleepy voice could be heard from behind the glass partition into the sleeping section of the room, accompanied by the rustling of sheets and, afterwards, the clacking sounds of boots walking across the metal floor and the slight squeal attributed to the opening of the glass partition. Naylor nearly jumped at the unexpected voice, quickly turning round in his chair to see the asari half-dressed in a simple dressing gown across her torso but with her boots and leg armour already on.

"Oh, shit. Sorry, Liara, I wasn't expecting you to be up for at least another hour or so."

"It is fine. Now, what happened in the past seven hours?"

"Nothing major. We sent five data packets were to the Crucible engineers via a secure, high priority line to the Citadel. Reports from Digeris suggest that the Reapers have been thrown off-world, but the wider system remains in Reaper hands, while the Reaper force sent to Benning at the beginning of the war has been repulsed by an Alliance operation, destroying three Reaper Destroyers and a large number of reaper-converted personnel."

"And the last thing you were talking about? Something about countermanding?"

"Ah yeah. Take a look for yourself." Naylor vacated the chair, Liara quickly adjusting her clothes before taking the offered seat. "Reaper scouts have captured a number of refugee vessels in the Terminus Systems. Instead of destroying them, they killed any asari and salarian occupants, hung their bodies up from the walls, and then converted any turian, batarian and humans into husks, cannibals and marauders. The ships were then aimed at the Tasale system."

"Goddess."

"The first vessels were boarded, and the Reaper units killed but at a significant loss of life. About three other transports are currently lying disabled, believed to be having the same fate as the others captured and then released by the Reapers. Illium's defence force is readying itself for total war, even though the Reapers are still very far away. No one knows how quickly the Reapers will advance through the Terminus Systems when they reach there."

"I see. It is worrying. Glyph, did you mention the measures we had in place for when Illium was attacked by Reaper forces?"

"Yes, Doctor. The Lieutenant recommended that I put into place the measures for the evacuation of civilians immediately, and consult you on the military measures that were discussed."

"Thank you. Peter, I think you made the right call here. Glyph, put both measures into action, top priority. Have agents Feron and Murat coordinate them."

"Of course, Doctor." Glyph's drone deactivated for the first time in seven hours, having constantly been working to assist Naylor while he was working the network over the shift. While Glyph had inferred that Shepard found him rather annoying thanks to events on the old Shadow Broker's ship, Naylor had found him an interesting companion, for a VI at least. Liara had had the sense to imprint him with a sense of humour setting, which brightened up the hours working with only the drone to talk to.

"I'll have to say despite my apprehension I'm really, really thankful that you could help me Peter. I know that seven hours rest isn't exactly a remedy for several weeks on the go, but I needed it."

"Say nothing about it. I actually made some decent use of an eight hour shift doing this, and Glyph isn't bad to talk to. Most of the time."

"You can't be serious about the making use of a shift." Liara laughed in reply to what she perceived as light-hearted humour. "You aren't, right?"

"I am. I haven't been doing anything but maintenance on my equipment since Shepard sent my team back early with you from the surface of Menae."

"Well then. In that case, I'd ask you to stay on and do some more work over the next few days. If you wouldn't mind, of course."

"Sure." Liara turned back to her terminals, smiling to herself as she brought up the reports that Naylor had flagged for her review and bringing the terminals up to their full intensity. Naylor had dimmed them down to both aid his tired eyes and lower the light levels to give Liara the best sleep she could get. Naylor took the sign of Liara returning to work, and his eyes protesting at the glare from the monitors up to full brightness as to exit and rack up some time in the sleeping pods just outside, in the hallway connecting to the main battery. Finding the closest one empty, the Lieutenant dived inside, setting it to keep him asleep for the next nine hours. As the door closed and locked, Naylor was already fast asleep.

* * *

"Shit, Lieutenant. You sleep in or something?" Symonds stared at the breakfast 'meal' that Naylor had been served, envious of the slightly better quality compared to his lunch. The rest of the marine team, all eating their lunches beside Symonds, stopped and watched for Naylor's reaction.

"I've just woken up after 23 hours on duty, Private, so shut your trap. Shepard's got me on the Beta rota, eight hours behind you scrubby lot." Naylor turned his attention back to the meal in front of him, eating the first of many mouthfuls of the rubber-textured reconstituted scrambled eggs on cardboard toast that was the day's breakfast.

"Sir, why are you on Beta? You cleaning the toilets or something?"

"Nope. Shepard has me on a classified detail that requires me to be awake during the third eight-hour cycle of the day. Hence, I'm on Beta."

"Classified, eh? He must be cleaning the toilets."

"Fuck. You. Takeida. Roberts, how is the squad looking?"

"You? Well you look like you've just stepped out of bed. The squad? Well, we've been doing a lot of work on maintaining our battle readiness. Shepard told me that she has a hunch that we'll be needed for some reason, however implausible, when we deploy the genophage on Tuchanka."

"That's interesting. Keep working on that over the next few days while you're on shift one. We'll take downtime during shift two and we'll use that time to make sure that we're on top of the latest Reaper and Cerberus developments. Oh, and a little heads up – Shepard's planning a shore leave to the Citadel in a few days time. We'll be off duty for a day and a half while Professor Solus does more work on the genophage cure." As he announced the shore leave, the twelve marines gave a slight cheer. The Citadel was a haven of ignorance compared to the rest of the galaxy, its inhabitants as of yet unaware of the carnage raging around the Serpent Nebula. The Alliance helped run several facilities on the Ward arms that soldiers could use while on shore leave, and dozens of nightclubs, bars and even casinos would always prove to be a popular attraction when crewmembers found themselves with a day or two of shore leave.

"Hot damn! We finally get some shore leave."

"Well, that is sort of your fault for volunteering to be reassigned to the Normandy, Symonds." The marine team laughed and jeered after Sara made her own comment, enjoying the humour at the young Private Symonds' expense.

"Yeah, yeah, Sara. Some of us enjoy being more than five minutes away from our equipment." The laughter and cheers grew even louder, the friendly banter between the squad mates sounding as if they were friends of many years rather than a few short weeks. Naylor joined in, nearly choking on his own food as he laughed through the last mouthful of the vile tasting eggs and toast. To his credit, he didn't let his near-distress show as he laughed, but then he didn't notice that Shepard was standing over the shoulder of the private, a stern expression written on her face.

"Private, are you done ridiculing one of my combat engineers?"

"Sir, no sir!" Symonds snapped off a joke of a salute, causing Shepard to giggle at the young soldier as the rest of the marine team descended once more into laughter. "With respect, Commander, she started it!"

With his eggs finished and spying an opportunity to rib the young private, Naylor dived back into the conversation. "Says the man whining about being on a warship!" Naylor carefully moved his empty tray to one side of the table as his marines laughed away, Takeida gripping Symonds in a playful headlock.

"Well, Symonds, you're on your own here. Lieutenant, Doctor T'Soni's looking for you. She also wanted me to pass on a message, saying 'Measures were a complete success'. I have no idea what that means, but I think it was good." Shepard turned from the mess hall, giving Naylor the slip of paper that Liara had written her message on and walking towards the medbay, her aim to check on the progress of Mordin and his genophage cure. Quickly disposing of his meal, the Lieutenant went on into Liara's office, pausing briefly while the door recognised him as someone with permission to enter. Liara had updated her security to allow him to pass into the room whenever he was needed to cover a shift or if Liara wanted to talk to him. At that moment, however, Liara had another visitor.

"Thanks Wrex. This means a lot." Naylor found himself staring into the back of a battered suit of red armour, clinging tightly to an absolute mountain of sentient muscle.

"Don't mention it, Liara. We didn't have a chance to give it to you before the mission on Ilos, and I've kept hold of it all the way since Noveria. Your mother was a strong fighter to the end. You'll do her proud." The Krogan turned, Naylor deftly dodging out of the way and nodding to the warlord as he left the office. Wrex responded with a grunt of acknowledgement – he didn't know the human, so why talk to someone he had no interest in knowing? Liara had turned back to her terminals, but span on the spot when she heard Wrex's grunt.

"Ah, good to see you, Lieutenant. Would you like a drink?" Liara pointed to an open bottle sitting by the terminal she was standing beside.

"Why not. I got your message about the measures we took on Illium. I trust that they've worked?"

"Yes. I think the human saying goes 'like a treat'." Liara took out a pair of glasses from behind the bottle, pouring out a reasonable measure of what Naylor now recognised to be a very rich and expensive wine from the colony of Lessus. "But that's not what I wanted to talk about – it's about Antimony."

"Huh? You looked up my service record?"

"I wanted to do some basic background checks, just to make sure that I can trust-"

"Hang on, you run a background check on me now, _after _you let me loose on the Crucible designs and the Shadow Broker's network?"

"I understand that it is rather unconventional, but I need to do this, to satisfy that little infuriating voice inside my head that doesn't trust you."

"Fine. What do you want to know?"

Liara pulled up the two seats she had in the room, motioning for Naylor to take a seat in one, while she sat opposite the terminal containing the Crucible designs and brought up the long list of assignments, missions and test results that was Naylor's career on the screen. "Let's start with things before the Alliance. All of it."

"Well then, where to begin? You'll likely know that I was born and raised on Earth in a suburb of London, the town of Amersham, just outside Service Way 25. Attended primary school in the town and got accepted to the Alliance-run Caulson Military Academy when I was eleven, studied there until I was kicked out aged seventeen."

"What happened during your time in the Caulson Military Academy?"

"Well, those that went to the CMA were all chosen, based off of their skills, to take up certain roles within the Alliance when they started their term of service. I was enrolled in the Engineer Scheme in the first year I was there. I was supposed to have the kind of potential that would see me serve on carriers and dreadnoughts at the start of my career and be leading engineering teams by the time that others who enrolled alongside me would getting past Serviceman Third Grade."

"The Academy was a route for aspirants to rise quickly in the Alliance?"

"It was designed that way, with crops bright young students scouted from all around the world and, if they wished so, taught there to be the best in human space, if not among the best in the entire galaxy. Students received physical and military training to the same standard as Alliance boot camps alongside their normal education, so it meant that people could skip the two-year training period at the start of service with the Alliance. That was spread over the course of the academic years nine to twelve, ages 14 to 17. Thanks to the circumstances around my exit from the school, I had only completed that part of the education there, but I didn't complete all of the stuff to be an engineer."

"Why did you leave the school then? Surely the prospects surrounding your future were looking good with your education from there?"

"Thinks never went perfectly through the seven years I studied there. My parents were both killed in a shuttle accident when I was twelve, and after that I was living in the Academy's boarding school section thanks to a lack of relatives living anywhere near the school. Things were going pretty normally for the most time, the usual fair for most of the students being simply the competitive rivalry between classes and within classes, but then it started going downhill around sixteen. That particular year saw a lot of problems arise in and around the school, the usual drugs and alcohol abuse from older students was mixed with an almost militant rivalry between one of the Infantry Classes, 7I, and one of the Engineer Classes, 3E. My class, 1E, was caught in the middle one time after a particularly competitive class evaluation, but thankfully that was stamped out quickly.

"A year later, however, and 7I had beaten 3E in a series of competitions, and everything exploded. Not literally, but the two classes were pretty much raging actual warfare on the streets of the boarding section after dark. One night, the 21st December, they caught a class of eleven year olds in the crossfire. On that occasion they began throwing Molotov Cocktails at each other and attacking each other with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Me and three friends were guiding the class from the mess hall through the 'warzone' when the fighting erupted. We had to try and force a way through the street through the engineer class, but by the time we had got the last of the kids through, the authorities had clamped down on the fighting and arrested most of those involved, including the four of my class who had been trying to protect young students, who received a wide plethora of burns and injuries. We were told that everyone arrested would be thrown out of the school, but Admiral Lindholm, the patron of the Academy, intervened once she was informed by some of the eleven year olds of what we had done. She gave us the chance to, as we had completed the military training, join the marines in the same fashion as if we had finished our time at the academy in an infantry class."

"So that was how you were promoted quickly when you signed up then."

"Yep. We were taken through an Alliance Officer Cadet Training Unit, or AOCTU, to brush up our skills, before being assigned roles. I was sent, as soon as I turned 18 in 2180, to serve on the SSV Waterloo with the Fourth Fleet."

"Yes, your service record mentioned that you served with on Antimony. I assume you were there during the attack?"

"Right on the front lines. You'll of course know that Antimony was officially an asari world, but it was co-managed by the Systems Alliance as well as the Asari Republics due to its location deep within human space and the fact that the asari wanted to develop better diplomatic relations with humanity." Liara nodded at all the points that he recalled. She knew of the planet not due to its individual nature as a joint human-asari world, but its scattering of Prothean ruins, mostly poor quality but a select few were important enough to draw in archaeologists and scientists from the galaxy over. "During my time on Antimony the Waterloo's marine detail I was assigned to lead spent most of its time on the planet, alongside the Alliance 12th Marine division, who were there on a permanent basis. The asari had been insistent that we place a naval garrison above Antimony, as opposed to our usual system of defence stations and monitors, with powerful counter-attacking forces, so as such, the Waterloo was stationed in orbit while her marine detail was posted to the surface when the ship wasn't on patrol rotations."

"You served there from 2181 to late 2182, correct? Until asari support for the colony was discontinued?"

"Yep. The Waterloo was first stationed over Antimony in June 2181, a year after I arrived, and left in 2182 when the colony was abandoned. Knew an awful lot of good people there, especially the asari friends I had."

"And what of the batarian attack? What role did you play during that?"

"I was escorting an asari Matriarch around one of the recently-excavated Prothean ruins that we had discovered while expanding the colony to the north-west, into the mountain regions. When the batarians launched their assault, myself, two Alliance APC drivers, twelve commandos and the matriarch were all stuck outside the colony's outer limits with no way of safely making it to the colony's central 'keep', the secure area that the civilians and military would retreat to in the event of an attack."

"I would guess that you didn't just sit about and waited for the attack to finish then?"

"Not on your life. The ground commander, a genius by the name of Ahern, ordered us to try and launch a surprise counterattack to retake the spaceport, given that it lay directly on our route back to the keep. The batarians had used it as their base of operations, controlling the orbital defences from there and stopping the Alliance from dropping in more reinforcements from orbit. I thought it was crazy, but I had yet to see asari commandos in proper combat before."

"And then you proceeded to retake the spaceport and allow the Alliance and asari reinforcements, led by Matriarch Lidanya herself, to evict the remaining batarian invaders." Liara was not interested in the specifics of the story. "Yes, that was an interesting news article when it broke. You see, I had been asked by one of the benefactors funding my work to consider Antimony's ruins as the basis for a new research study, and I was keen to know whether I would still be able to head to the planet after the attack. Despite my interest in the events, however, I never caught wind of a human helping the asari commandos from the media."

"Curse my bad luck, then. Barely seconds before the first of the reinforcing shuttles arrived in the spaceport, a fuel tank exploded very close to where I and two other commandos were taking cover. I had to be placed under general anaesthesia so that a doctor could remove the shrapnel in my left leg, very, very close to the femoral artery. When the debriefing of the came, I was still under, and though I was informed later that the matriarch had vouched for me being present with her during the fighting, that particular story couldn't be confirmed, and I had been mixed in with the Alliance casualties coming from the main battleground within the colony itself. The media ended up running with the story before I was able to be debriefed and had a chance to recount my part of the story."

"I see. Given the injuries one would get from urban warfare, they would have been very easy to mix up."

"Definitely. But then, a few weeks after I had recovered, I received a message from Asari High Command. They recognised the help that I provided during the mission, thanked me for what I'd done and slapped the Lusian Cross on my record as a way of saying 'sorry' for not being able to change the what the media would report on that far down the line."

"Your record does mention the award of the Lusian Cross. I found it odd afterwards how one of the most highly regarded asari medals appeared out of nowhere. So, after the battle with the batarians, Antimony was regarded to be too damaged to continue as a colony. What happened then?"

"The SSV Waterloo was assigned a number of patrol rotations with the Fourth Fleet around the Armstrong Nebula. We were a part of the first squadron into the Nebula as part of the Alliance's counterattack against the Geth when the Normandy took down the geth's main control centre. You were probably there when we went through the relay." Liara nodded, briefly remembering the day that Shepard, Wrex and Tali had taken the geth's base out, and allowed the Alliance the chance to force the geth onto the defensive. "Unfortunately, as one of the first ships into combat, we took extensive damage. The flow of Alliance ships flying into the Armstrong Nebula prevented us from making it back to Arcturus to repair, and when a lone geth ship destroyed our primary FTL drive, we had no choice but to make for the Citadel, try and effect some repairs there before returning to drydock on Arcturus."

"And that was when you were reassigned to a post with the Alliance embassy on the Citadel, then."

"Yep. The Waterloo was deemed to be irreparable by a team of Alliance engineers that were sent to the Citadel, and the vessel was to be mothballed. The majority of the crew were assigned to being a part of the decommissioning team, but the marine detail found ourselves out of a job. Arcturus eventually gave most of the detail new postings, mainly to marine units stationed around the galaxy on ground installations. I was the last to be reassigned, but the then-Captain Anderson got Hackett to reassign me to his command, thanks to my experience in dealing with other species from Antimony."

"So you were assigned a job under Anderson on the Citadel. What did that entail, exactly?"

"My role was pretty much as an old-fashioned runner. I'd collect encrypted copies of reports from the Alliance embassy on the Citadel and deliver them to wherever they needed to go. Given the fact that we reckoned Saren still had supporters in very high-up places on the Citadel, and thus informants, we thought it would be better to personally deliver items rather than send them over potentially compromised channels." Naylor took his first sip of the wine, the beverage having remained untouched since Liara had poured out a measure for him. "Damn, this is good. I mean, _really _good."

"I had a friend from my days on Illium pick it out for me before we left the Citadel."

"Well, say thank you to him or her from me. I ended up doing a few jobs for Anderson, mainly liaising with Citadel authorities for a number of reasons, but the important ones were running the reports from Shepard and the Normandy to the council."

"Did you ever read the reports?"

"Couldn't. Only the councillors and Anderson had the encryption keys. Udina was always briefed by the Captain, but I never lingered long enough to catch what was going on. Didn't think it right to eavesdrop on confidential conversations." Liara gave a small giggle, no doubt realising that what Naylor had been saying was the polar opposite of what he had been doing with the Broker's network the night before. "But then there was the attack on the Citadel in August 2183, and that _wasn't_ fun."

"Oh? This is a bit where your record goes a bit blank."

"I was running a series of messages to the office of Councillor Tevos, as she wanted to be briefed on the Alliance's role in the Council-run blockade of access to the Citadel, when the Geth landed on the station. Tevos had two bodyguards around her office when I was there, and both were killed in the initial stages of the attack. This time, as I was expecting to return a reply from Tevos to the embassy, I was still around, and the last of the two commandos ordered me to get Tevos out to an evacuation post so that she could be taken to the Destiny Ascension. As the entire area was crawling with Geth, the councillor suggested that we take the ventilation systems to escape."

Liara laughed. "You and vents. Please, go on."

"Well, the difference here is that the vents on the Citadel are massive compared to the ones on Mars. While the councillor ran ahead of me, I conducted what could loosely be described a fighting withdrawal, holding off the pursuing geth units in several stages. When we reached the evacuation point, I rather unceremoniously threw the councillor onto the evac shuttle and told her to get the hell out of there. By that point, I had several wounds in my legs and upper back, and was pretty much out of it. Instead of flying away immediately, Tevos ordered the pilot to hover the shuttle and used her own biotics to yank me into the shuttle and away from the geth. In less than an hour, I had saved the councillor and she had saved me, but I was out cold thanks to the biotic pull."

"So what happened after that?"

"Well, apparently the councillor ordered the shuttle pilot to dock with the Destiny Ascension, before directing a medical team to abandon their attempts to check her for injuries and set them to work on stabilising myself. Interestingly enough, I was the first human patient in a critical condition ever to be treated by the Ascension's medbay, so it was lucky that it all ran without complications. By the time that I was awake, the Alliance fleet was in action against the remaining geth ships, saving the Ascension and the council. So, well, I owe my life to Shepard _and_ Councillor Tevos. But that's beside the point. In the aftermath of the battle, I was still recovering on the Ascension, and nobody in the Alliance followed up on where I was in all the carnage.

"When I recovered fully, Tevos surprised me and number of others when she asked me to join her commando bodyguard for a short while, given the fact that I had pretty much become her bodyguard during the battle of the Citadel. I initially thought that the Alliance wouldn't allow that, but then she said that the Alliance hadn't responded when Matriarch Lidanya inquired about where I should have been sent after recovering. After talking about it to Councillor Anderson, he suggested I take on the role as part of an exchange program in the same fashion as militaries on Earth do. I learn from the asari unit I'm assigned to, and the asari unit learns from me." Naylor took another sip from the glass of wine, enjoying the silky texture and rich taste as he did so.

"How would learning different forces' techniques even work, anyway? Surely that would be counterproductive rather than informative?"

"Much the opposite. Asari are masters of what we call asymmetrical warfare – hit and run attacks, infiltration, assassination and sabotage. What I learnt has served me well in the times since then, especially when combined with the training I got from ICT. I managed to teach to the commandos of Tevos' bodyguard, as well as a few select others, how to conduct the kind of straight-up defensive fights that humans have been mastering for the past two centuries. I mean no disrespect, but asari, for all their prowess in combat, aren't as suited for conventional warfare as humans and turians are. I tried to impart some of the thinking humans go through when fighting a defensive battle. Hopefully it'll be enough against the Reapers, but I hope we don't have to get to that stage. A lot of the other commandos I taught have been spread across the asari's forces in the past two years, spreading the knowledge."

"And you used that knowledge you spread when the batarians tried to attack the Council?"

"No."

"Huh?"

"When the batarians tried getting at the Council while on their victory cruise, we found out pretty quickly their plans, where they were based and the route through the bowels of the city that the councillors were visiting. I helped lead a commando team alongside the then-Lieutenant Lemaes to ambush and annihilate them using normal asari tactics before they got close. It was a several hour long chase through the tunnels once we broke their formation but the commandos took no prisoners."

"I remember hearing about the cleaning up the city's workers had to do afterwards. I imagine it was not a pretty sight." Naylor laughed, shaking his head. "But again there wasn't much about your involvement when the story broke. Yes, there was some praise for an unnamed human lieutenant assisting the commandos, but most of the adulation was thrown towards Lemaes when she was promoted to Captain."

"I asked for that to be done. I don't accept praise easily, Liara, especially when the press is involved."

"I understand, the galaxy's media do tend to stick their collective noses in places where they shouldn't. After the battle of the Citadel, I found myself under a lot of scrutiny from the media, who had no respect for my own personal and private life. I even saw one article which disguised some of my own personal messages inside blocks of text. I found out later that it had been hacked by a freelance journalist." Naylor scoffed, thankfully not through a mouthful of the expensive wine.

"Journalists. Both informative and hateful at the same time."

"Very true. So, after your time on the Ascension, you joined the Interplanetary Combatives Program in September 2184."

"Yep. Six months of absolute hell and lots of alcohol after hard days' work. Passed N1 two months after I joined, and then on the recommendation of Admiral Hackett, I then graduated N2 in December, N3 in January, N4 in February and N6 in mid-March 2185. Got assigned to Project Arvana on Thessia as my first assignment out of ICT, and I received my N7 designation through the post. Hackett said that I had proved myself worthy of the red stripe on the Ascension. After the conclusion of Arvana, I hitched a lift back to Earth, presented the results to the Alliance, and while they set about distributing the results I was assigned to the Everest. Next thing I knew, Reapers hit and now I'm here."

"That is quite a journey."

"Well, it's not as frantic as the stuff you reportedly got up to on the original Normandy. Is it true that Shepard fought Rachni on Noveria?"

"Well, yes. She ended up releasing a Rachni queen after… after killing my mother."

The blood began to drain from Naylor's face. "Oh God, I'm so sorry for bringing that up. That must have been horrible."

"I wasn't there. Shepard didn't want me there to see my mother die. That was why Urdnot Wrex was in here – Benezia had given him a final gift before she passed away on the planet." Liara pulled herself to her feet, walking towards the bed where she had left the package Wrex had passed on a short while before. "Wrex never got the chance to pass it on before the final battle against Saren began. We headed straight for the . I've no idea what it is." She pulled at the string keeping the parcel's wrapping together, the paper unfolding to reveal a small black box. She tentatively opened the box, glimpsing what was inside and slamming it shut very quickly. "Oh, oh my."

"What is it?"

Liara picked the box up, walking back towards where Naylor was now standing, and opened it fully this time, the lid snapping back into a fully-open position as she reached in to carefully lift out the first of the items inside. "This is a traditional memory sphere. Asari can leave an imprint on it, like a meld but slightly different. I suppose the human equivalent would probably be someone's ashes. We asari are given them when someone incredibly close to us dies, and they imprint a final few things on it usually if they know that they will pass away at some soon moment. The composition of these spheres is remarkably similar to some Prothean relics that we've found, including a far larger sphere that Shepard found on Eletania. Nobody knows where they originate from or how we are able to imprint memories on them, but we do find a lot of them in the highlands on Thessia.

"Benezia must have been carrying this when she died on Noveria, as apparently her eyes went black during the final fight when there were no commandos alive around her. And there's something below it, too. What is that?" Liara carefully laid down the crystal beside the terminal, before reaching in and pulling away the velvet lining on the bottom of the box. Naylor peered over, not wanting to intrude, but he caught a glimpse at the object.

"That's a data card. Old human technology, used as a way of transferring stuff onto and off of the first omni-tools we built."

"Why would she give me an old piece of human technology as a final gift?"

"I can't really tell. I'd suggest you should look over whatever it contains, but I don't want to intrude on it. Could be something really personal, and you deserve privacy for something like this anyway."

Liara replaced the data slate and the crystal, closing the box and laying it down on her bed again. It was only then that she felt a tear drop down her cheek, quickly wiping it away and controlling the boiling emotions she felt. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For being here, for talking to me. I don't get much of a chance to talk to people like this, one on one."

"Don't mention it. It was fun." Naylor jumped up from his seat as he knew the conversation was pretty much over, turning for the door. "And thanks for the drink."

"You are too kind, Peter. I'd love to continue, but I should be getting back to work. I'll see you at the end of the shift, if that's okay?"

"Of course. Take care."

* * *

As Naylor exited the room, Liara turned back to the memory sphere. Picking it up in her hand, she felt the flawless metal surface between her fingers, running a thumb over her reflection. Though she felt no different, Glyph popped up, seeing something anomalous while remotely monitoring the asari's vital signs.

"Doctor, I have detected a rapid imbalance of chemicals in your bloodstream and a significant increase in your heart rate. Are you experiencing health problems or other forms of distress?"

"No, Glyph. I'm fine. Are you sure your readings are correct?"

"Doctor, my readings are correct. I have detected spikes in the levels of several chemicals within your blood, and your heart rate is significantly elevated from its normal rate."

"Glyph, I feel fine. Go and analyse some of the intelligence Shepard has picked up on Reaper forces instead." The asari, however, was slightly concerned. She had indeed felt an increase in her heart rate when she found out what was inside Benezia's final gift. She was still feeling the repetitive drum of her heart at that moment, far faster than normal, but it was the fact that she had only felt it when opening the box that made her attribute it to the anticipation of finding out what was on the sphere. "It must be from the sphere. What else would my body have to feel excited or trepidated about?"

Holding the sphere out in two hands, Liara locked her door to everyone, including Naylor and Shepard, before sitting down with her legs crossed in front of her. Gliding her hands across the surface, she took a deep breath before exhaling, whispering a few short words of mental fortitude. She closed her eyes slowly, before they snapped open, the vibrant blue forgotten in place of a swallowing obsidian.

_"Embrace Eternity!"_

* * *

**A/N: **The idea for the memory sphere comes from the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC. In the list of items that Samara gave up when becoming a Justicar, it mentions a memorial sphere to do with Samara's bondmate. I came up with the idea for what the memory sphere was based off of the prothean ball beacon you find on Eletania, and from what Javik said in the Temple of Athame about the Protheans' intervention with the asari. I thought that it would be the case that the protheans would either leave some things behind, inadvertently, or take some resources from Thessia.

The data card is pretty much a very small and more advanced Micro SD card…


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** I will admit I'm not much of a fan of this chapter. In fact, I really don't like it, but I'm putting it up because it's at least a break between posting chapters where Naylor's just staring at the Broker's network. That sounds quite wrong doesn't it...

* * *

**Day Thirty Five. Tuchankan orbit, Krogan DMZ**

"Shuttle away. ETA to Tuchanka is fifteen minutes." Three floors below where the crew in the CIC stood, the hangar bay doors closed as Shepard's team of herself, James Vega, Javik, Garrus Vakarian, EDI and Urdnot Wrex, backed up by Sergeant Takeida and three of Naylor's marines made their way in Cortez' shuttle into the atmosphere of Tuchanka below, speeding away quickly to rescue a downed platoon of Turian marines, trapped where their frigate had been forced down by a force of Reaper scouts.

"Roger that." Naylor walked from the CIC into the Tech Labs, nodding to Westmoreland and Campbell standing guard by the security gate at the entrance. A short scan later and Naylor entered into the location of what had been the Normandy's old laboratory, now half-converted into a conference centre during the Alliance's retrofits. Beyond that was Naylor's destination – the Normandy's extremely high-tech War Room. In there stood Liara T'Soni, Sergeant Roberts, and the new turian Primarch, Adrien Victus.

"Lieutenant, shuttles are into the atmosphere, but scans of the crash site show it as being as mangled as hell."

"Suggestions, Roberts?"

Roberts leant forward, the holographic projector in the War Room showing the ground scans of the crash site. "Shepard's team will need to arrive here, at the beginning of the trail of the frigate's crash." She pointed to the start of an incredibly deep scar in the landscape, carving deep into the ruins of an ancient city on the surface of the planet. "It's nearly a kilometre from this LZ to the main bulk of the frigate, but we have emergency transponders from escape pods lined all over the area."

"I concur with the Sergeant. We cannot land a shuttle, however skilled the pilot, anywhere remotely close to the frigate thanks to the nature of the terrain. The ruins just don't give us a clear and safe landing zone to land the Kodiak in." Liara's assessment was valid – the nearest landing areas were incredibly small, and a slight deviation of just a few feet would see the shuttle crash into spars of metal and broken concrete.

"Got it. EDI, can you upload the updated flight plan to your mobile platform, and send it to Cortez? Roberts, I want you to lead the QRF squad down in the hangar bay. Shuttle two is being prepped and ready for launch." Roberts made her way out of the War Room, signalling her squad to don their armour and head for the shuttle bay. "Primarch, do you know how many crew members are we looking at for the frigate?"

"Turian frigates have a crew of 120 when running a normal crew, but for this frigate, I'm afraid that information is classified."

"Primarch, sir. We don't need to know exactly how many people there are on that ship, just a very rough number."

"About ninety. The frigate was running a skeleton crew of sixty, as well as a platoon of soldiers being transported." Victus stared right at Naylor as he gave up the details of the frigate's crew. "Doctor T'Soni, I understand you're the best possible person to ask on the Crucible, yes?"

"Well, I wouldn't call myself the best but-"

"I want to know about what the Crucible will to when we activate it."

"Well, Primarch, that may be quite a challenge."

"Why, Doctor?"

"We do not know."

"Please explain."

"The designs for the crucible that we have translated so far are very vague on what the device is designed to do. If we were to use the crucible, it would be like a child wielding a loaded gun." Liara immediately realised why what she had said was a poor analogy in the situation – turian children were taught basic marksmanship at an early age, a requirement demanded by their society. Thankfully, Naylor noticed too when he saw Victus thinking about what Liara had said.

"What Liara is saying, Primarch, is that we will be completely in the dark when the Crucible is deployed and fired. What's more, we still believe that there is a vital component that is missing from the design."

"What is this component, and can we build it?"

"I don't know, Primarch, but if my and Lieutenant Naylor's predictions are anything to go by, that component could be far larger than the Destiny Ascension. Given the size of the Crucible at the moment, constructing something of that size from scratch won't out of the picture."

"Thank you two for explaining that. We should be paying attention to the commander's progress. They shouldn't be too far from deploying themselves now. VI, how long until Commander Shepard's shuttle reaches the planned landing zone on the surface?"

"The shuttle's ETA is five minutes, Primarch."

"Serviceman Firth, can we run another localised scan of the planet's surface around the area? Say, five kilometre radius from the crash site." The display began updating, showing the crash site, the ruins around the crash site and the carcass of a city beyond that. Red icons in and amongst the city showed masses of Reapers moving throughout the area, the occasional blue dot along the line of the crash giving away locations for the survivors of the crash that had gotten away in escape pods. As the search widened, Naylor, Victus and Liara watched as the occasional other blue dots appeared, Krogan forces moving to match the arrival of the Reaper forces on their planet. But they were dwarfed by the almost sea-like appearance of the red indicators of the Reaper swarms, constantly on the move and marching towards battle. "God, that's a lot of Reapers, isn't it?"

"Spirits. I hope the Krogan are ready for what is going to hit them. And this is just a scouting force."

"Primarch, there has to be a Reaper transport that has landed somewhere around the crash site. The build up of Reaper forces here over the past few days is too quick for their arrival to be anything else. How possible would it be to pressure either turian or Alliance vessels to find and eliminate that vessel?"

"A good suggestion, Lieutenant, but I fear that it would present us with the same problem as here. If those vessels are shot down by the Reapers, or forced to crash like the frigate… we cannot afford to lose more ships."

"It would have to be an orbital bombardment, then. And that means we need more ships to deal with them. Ideally, I would suggest one cruiser, a wolf pack of four frigates and assistance with orbital targeting from the CDEM's battle stations."

"Speaking from experience, Lieutenant, or theory?"

"A mix." Naylor lied slightly – although he had some very limited experience in naval combat and orbital bombardment from his service history, the bulk of his knowledge came from his time at the Interplanetary Combatives Training academy. During his time there, he had taken supplementary classes in how naval elements could support ground units effectively, and given what the Alliance already knew about Reaper transport vessels, he knew that they generally possessed extremely weak armour, but kinetic barriers of a moderate strength. That particular factor about the transports made them extremely vulnerable to orbital bombardments when landed on a planet, when the kinetic barriers on the vessels were weakened to reduce the ship's mass. "A concentrated, whirlwind bombardment from the frigates takes out its kinetic barriers; we smash holes in the vessel's armour with the cruiser and then use torpedoes launched either from the Normandy or the frigates to take out the vessel's drive core, sending it up in smoke."

"A sound strategy. I will see what I can get with regards to turian ships, in the case." The Primarch walked up to the QEC, calling up the QEC connecting directly to the council. "I will also contact Admiral Hackett, in case I cannot secure turian vessels, Lieutenant."

"Very much appreciated, sir." Shepard's shuttle flew into the range of the scanner, the blue icon sweeping quickly along the axis of the path of the frigate's crash. "Shepard's shuttle is within scanner range. EDI, start the clock."

"Of course, Lieutenant. Mission timer has begun."

"Alright, let's earn our pay. Firth, keep us on a one-minute scan cycle. As soon as Shepard reports a first contact, we switch to real-time and ramp the cycle up to constant scanning. Operations Chief, I want tactical data being streamed right back to this console here as soon as boots are on the ground."

"Aye aye, Lieutenant." The display began updating as Naylor opened a direct communications link to the shuttle.

"_Shepard here."_

"Shepard, this is Lieutenant Naylor. War Room is ready."

"_Stunning. Is Primarch Victus about? I want to talk to him about communicating with the turian units we're rescuing, see whether we can't use an old Flash-Thunder style of recognition that they'd understand."_

"The Primarch is currently in the Comms Room on the line with Admiral Hackett and Fleet Admiral Coronati of the Turian fleets. They're organising the possibility of trying to hunt down the Reaper transport deploying forces onto Tuchanka via an orbital bombardment."

"Alright, I'll ask about it later. Wrex, are you okay with the Turians and or humans deploying vessels to hunt for a Reaper transport on Tuchanka's surface?"

"_We can deal with the damn transport. Save your fancy ships for the Reapers themselves."_

"With respect, Urdnot Wrex, we're looking at thousands of Reapers in the area around the transport. We need to keep the Krogans from taking inordinate casualties, so an orbital bombardment will be the best method of taking it out."

"_Your concern for my species is touching, pyjak."_ Though the interference from the pollution in the atmosphere diminished and ruined the signal somewhat, Naylor understood enough of what Wrex was saying to know that he was being as sarcastic as one could be. _"We can handle the transport."_

"_Wrex, I ha-hate to say it, but Naylor's-s-s right. We can't afford to lose any more Kro-krogan on what we can do from or-orbit."_ Shepard's voice was coming through the channel broken and nearly unintelligible. Despite Traynor's best attempts after she was enlisted to fight the atmospheric interference, the channel still remained very difficult to utilise.

"Shepard, we're losing radio contact. Information will be tightbeamed to EDI's platform in real time instead of over the comm. channel."

"_Co-copy."_ Every time Shepard or one of the other members of the team used the radio channel, static would either reduce what they were saying to an unintelligible mess or completely destroy the signal. EDI's workaround was to relay any signals that were interfered through her tightbeam connection to the ship's mainframe, but with the flood of combat data from the War Room taking up a huge portion of the tightbeam's available bandwidth, the signals were poor quality and often also came through broken. _"Cortez-z-z is aw-way. We're mo-oving towards the target-t-t now."_

"Roger, Shepard. Be advised, we are uploading the location of three escape pods close to your route through the ruins. Reaper forces are closing in on their positions very quickly." The blue dots of Shepard's team spread out from their landing area, moving into the ruins in a loose skirmish formation. "Liara, do you see those red spots to the east of the crash site?"

"Yes, why?"

"I think they're harvesters. They're moving too fast to be ground units."

"Definitely. They could make an absolute mess of the frigate's wreck. Shepard, this is Liara. We think there are harvesters moving in from the east of the crash site. Be on your guard."

"_Th-hanks Liara. We're kee-eeping our g-guard up."_ The ground team progressed forward, unfortunately reaching the first escape pod barely seconds after a horde of husks finished off the survivors. _"First pod-d, no survivors. Moving t-to the next-xt one." _The harvesters were now scything _past _the frigate, Liara peeking up at Naylor and looking confused as to why.

"Shepard, those harvesters are heading past the frigate's wreck." Unfortunately, as Shepard's team was nearing a second escape pods, Naylor realised where they were going.

"Aw crap. Shepard, they're vectoring towards the escape pods. You've got to be quick!" With a static-obliterated burst of noise, Shepard's team picked up their pace, the blue dots representing them charging through the ruins as the harvesters arrived on the scene.

"Lieutenant, scanners are reading heavy weapons being discharged in the area of the escape pod. The harvesters are targeting the surviving turians."

"Copy that Firth. EDI, we recommend Shepard targets the harvesters to prioritise the safety of the turian survivors. Can you pass that to the ground team?"

"Of course, Lieutenant." The icon representing the harvester bombarding the turian platoon blinked out of existence as Shepard's unit put hundreds of bullet holes into the beast, the reaper forces around it disappearing from the tactical display as well as the explosion of the dead harvester incinerated them. A few shielded marauder units survived, but they were quickly despatched by a volley from the turians, as well as fire from Garrus' sniper rifle. "The escape pod is secure, Lieutenant. All occupants accounted for. They are moving to regroup with the forces around the frigate."

"That's good news. Thank you EDI."

"EDI is not just a VI, is she Lieutenant?" Naylor and Liara almost froze. "Sometimes the way it interacts with myself, other crewmembers and Urdnot Wrex resembles how an AI would."

"EDI is a heavily upgraded VI built by Cerberus, Primarch. The Alliance rewrote her programming based off of changes made by Professor Solus and the geth Legion during her campaign against the Collectors when Shepard surrendered the ship to Admiral Hackett seven months ago." Naylor called up some of the composure that Tevos' had taught him to muster in situations like these, rattling off the prepared lie that Shepard had given the Alliance crew after leaving the Citadel for the first time. Unlike most of those around him, Naylor and Liara knew the truth behind the lie, and the words

"She?"

"Sorry. The crew collectively refer to EDI as a she."

"EDI was built by Cerberus?"

"Yes, Primarch. However, some of the technicians I employed in the company I ran on Illium removed most of the specific monitoring functions that were installed by Cerberus within her programming and helped rewrite her protocols to support Shepard's operations."

"We are certain that EDI has not compromised Alliance operations by giving information to Cerberus if she does have programs and protocols still causing her to send reports to the Illusive Man and his friends." At that moment, EDI interrupted the conversation over the speakers installed in the War Room.

"Lieutenant, I have done some analysis of the main crash site. There is a location half a kilometre away on the other side from the crash from Shepard's location. Reaper forces are in the area and are setting up heavy weapons there."

Liara and Naylor stared at the location that EDI had mentioned, highlighted on the tactical display. A large red blot covered the area, with a direct line of sight to the turians' small defensive perimeter around the only access to the destroyed frigate's hull – a large tear leading onto the ship's CIC and crew deck. Naylor concentrated on the Reaper forces moving towards the "That's a good vantage point. Stick a few machine guns in those ruins and you'd need a hundred Garrus Vakarians to dislodge them."

"And the best route that Shepard's team could take to get there would mean that the turians would be overrun before they reached the area." Liara drew a route over the map, bypassing the masses of Reaper forces on a line that was as direct as possible towards the ruined area where the Reapers were massing. Suddenly, Naylor had an idea. Instead of having ground units deal with the Reapers, a glaring weakness to the Reapers' chosen position was that, while it was well concealed and protected to forces on the ground, it was open to barrage attacks.

"I have an idea. EDI, how are our communications with the turians? Can we send a message to the frigate?"

"The frigate has its communications array up, but they are not responding to our hails when we use our normal Alliance, or Spectre diplomatic codes."

"Right." Liara coughed slightly, nodding her head towards the Primarch, who was finishing in the comm. room. "EDI, I'll deal with it. Continue sending information to the ground team for us." Victus came out of the communications room, taking up his usual position beside the console unlocked for his use during his time aboard the Normandy. "Primarch, we have a problem."

"What is it?"

"We have restored communications with the frigate down on Tuchanka, but they are not responding to even our hails using Spectre identification codes."

"Let me deal with this. EDI, please open a communication channel with the frigate using your Spectre identification codes. Lieutenant, say this." Victus wrote a quick note on a datapad sitting beside him on the side of the tactical display.

"Okay." EDI reported that the channel was now open. "Turian frigate _Crassus_, this is the SSV Normandy. Prepare to receive a priority transmission from the Primarch. Authorisation code alpha-one-alpha-seven-Cipritine."

The signal from the frigate, compared to the signals coming from Shepard's ground team and Cortez's shuttle was clear and pristine, unaffected by the atmosphere thanks to the ship's far more powerful signal emitter and specialised technology for longer distance communication whereas the communications from the ground team and shuttle were very badly affected, having been designed in an environment where its primary use would being communicating over a short range, and where ground to orbit communications were comparatively a very rare occurrence. _"SSV Normandy, this is the Crassus. Please put the Primarch on the communications channel and–" _

"_Crassus, _this is Primarch Adrien Victus. There is a force of Reaper ground units half a kilometre from your location with a direct line of sight to your defensive perimeter."

"_Acknowledged, Normandy. We will investigate and take action."_

"No. Tell Tarquin to hold his position and await relief from forces under Commander Shepard. I am handing the communications channel over to Lieutenant Naylor of the Normandy. Stand by."

"_Crassus_, this is Lieutenant Naylor, XO of the SSV Normandy. We are seeing a company-sized force of Reapers on our scanners five hundred metres from your location."

"_Copy, Normandy. What are your plans?"_

"We will initiate a bombardment with the spinal Thanix cannon on that position once we've finished repositioning. Be advised, anyone within five hundred metres of the target will be at risk. Anyone in the forward arc of the frigate will need to move towards the rear to avoid the blast radius and falling debris."

"_Roger that. We'll begin evacuating the forward sections now_." Naylor called up the CIC through the tactical display's interface, designating the target where the reapers were positioning themselves for an orbital bombardment. Serviceman Firth ran from the room into the CIC, a precautionary measure in case the communication for the firing solution was faulty and it communicated the wrong target. This time, however, his exit from the room wasn't necessary – the coordinates were correct and properly designated. Inside the CIC, the crew began working to prepare the ship for the bombardment, sending the target for the ship's Thanix cannon to the main battery. The technicians inside the battery laid in the targeting solution, plotting the ideal location from where the ship would initiate the bombardment, the angle at which the most damage to the Reapers and the least damage to the turian forces barely any distance away from the Normandy's target would be caused, and the number of shots that would best destroy the Reaper forces below. The firing solution completed, the data was sent back to the CIC and to Joker in the cockpit. The Normandy began shifting beneath them as Joker angled the vessel so that it was pointing towards the planet's surface.

"_Crassus_, this is the SSV Normandy. Firing solution has been plotted. Are your people five hundred metres clear yet?"

"_They are, Normandy. You are clear to fire."_

"Understood, _Crassus_. Bombardment beginning. Over and out." Naylor closed the ship to ship communication with the frigate, and opening a new channel to the CIC. "CIC, this is Lieutenant Naylor in the War Room. The turians on the surface have vacated to a safe distance. Fire away."

"Copy, War Room. Bombardment is underway." The Normandy shook once, twice in quick succession as the Thanix cannon unleashed two consecutive shots of molten metal. Thousands of kilometres below, the survivors of the frigate's crash took cover as the message from orbit about the bombardment was received. A blue glow illuminated the clouds above them, becoming brighter and brighter as the first of the two shots tore towards their target. The clouds parted in a in a vortex around the molten mass of metal, spearing straight towards the Reapers below them. A low whine could be heard by the turians on the ground, increasing in volume to a deafening crescendo as the shot smashed into the concrete and metal ruins of the city. The immediate area around the impact of the shot was obliterated in a whirlwind of dust and flame, the shockwave from the impact smashing apart concrete and warping steel for several metres around the impact point. The second shot hit just as the aftermath of the first began to die down, annihilating anything close to the impact that had been left standing by the first shot.

"_Normandy, this is the _Crassus_. Spirits, that was some damn fine shooting."_

"_Crassus, _our scanners are having problems constructing a battle damage assessment with all the interference from the explosion. What can you see from your position?"

"_Smoke, rubble, and a lot of dead Reapers. We've got short range scanners up again, and we can't seen anything alive in that smoke screen."_

"No worries, guys. Commander Shepard's team is approaching the frigate now. Good work down there. Normandy out." Naylor leant back away from the console, exhaling slowly. Liara and Victus also relaxed, visibly relieved at the end of the threat to the turians on the planet below. "I think that went well."

* * *

Shepard's shuttle had arrived back on the Normandy a considerable while ago, but while the rest of the ground team was occupied with their post mission duties, repairing damage caused to their armour, cleaning weapons and the like, Shepard had rushed straight for the elevator, angrily waiting as the elevator made its slow rise towards the CIC. Urdnot Wrex stood alongside her, silently brooding as he waited alongside her. "After all this time, all Victus' words about it being a time for the Krogan to return to the galactic stage as a species, and we find they've planted a fucking massive bomb on your planet. You may be angry, but I'm fucking pissed off by this!"

"Calm, Shepard." Wrex's voice during his attempt at calming the Spectre sounded more like he was trying to get her even more angry. "We need your head to be clear. We can't afford for you to lose it over something that happened centuries ago." The elevator arrived at the CIC, the doors opening to reveal the crew all still at the stations they were occupying during the mission before. Shepard dismissed all but the essential crew to the crew deck, their duties over with the conclusion of the successful operation. No matter that it was only half way into the current eight hour shift – they would take a break for a while before returning to their posts as soon as normality returned to the vessel. As the crew members made their way towards the elevator, Shepard and Wrex moved through the room towards the entrance to the Tech Labs and the War Room.

"Commander." Westmoreland and Campbell acknowledged Shepard as the Spectre and the krogan quickly made their way through the door's scanner and into the secure area of the ship. Both noticed the incredibly foul mood that the commander was going through, and as they looked at the retreating forms of the human and the krogan, Campbell turned back to her friend and companion at the door. "What do you think was happening there?"

"I'm not sure. And I don't think I want to find out, Sarah."

The War Room silenced as they saw the commander storm through the door, anger written across her face. Naylor and Liara stood back from the display, the former snapping to attention along with the other members of the War Room, the discipline to do so having been ingrained in them since enlistment. A curt wave of her hand put the crew members at ease, returning to their work as the low hubbub of noise returned to the room, but not for long.

"Primarch, a word in the communications room. Now." Victus stood his ground, not moving an inch in response to Shepard's cry. "Primarch, do you want this to go down in front of everyone?"

The turian stared intently at Shepard, his mandibles rock steady and locked in place. "Commander, I–"

"No. Listen, tell me everything about this bomb. Where is it placed, what is its yield, why was it placed there originally?"

Victus stared at the rest of the occupants in the room, the noise level having instantly dropped to nothing as soon as Shepard had begun shouting at the turian Primarch. "The bomb was planted a decade after the genophage was instigated, on the order of the highest ranks of the Turian Hierarchy. It was done without the knowledge of the other council races, before the turians were elevated to that status."

"You bastard. You thought that our forced sterilisation wasn't enough, so you had to plant a bomb to kill us all if you didn't like what you saw?"

"We couldn't risk the Krogan rising up like before. Before the genophage took effect, there were still billions of Krogan that were able to fight. Had they united, we didn't have the ability to stop them conventionally." Victus exhaled, composing himself before he continued. "The bomb, a category seven nuclear fusion bomb, is placed within the area of Tuchanka known as the Kelphic Valley, one of the major centres of krogan population and very close to the site of the major Urdnot camp. Its yield is nearly twenty megatons."

Shepard mentally did the calculations, working out how immense the explosion would be. "That's enough to wipe out everything in the entire Kelphic Valley!"

"Worse. Evidently the Hierarchy knew that the Kelphic Valley is surrounded by a series of exceptionally unstable fault lines. If the bomb were to be detonated, the explosion could potentially cause massive damage to the planet itself. No doubt that Cerberus will be trying to do everything to increase the yield of the weapon."

"If that bomb goes off, it could very well annihilate the home of the entire krogan race!" Wrex barrelled forward from where he had been waiting by the door, crashing into the Primarch and lifting him clear off the floor by the scruff on the front of his suit. Two of the larger crewmembers in the room walked forward to try and pry the turian from Wrex's grip, but they edged back when Shepard stepped in their way, flaring her biotics.

"I know." Wrex was caught off guard by the sullenness of the reply, dropping the Primarch to the floor in surprise. The turian picked himself up off the floor, dusting himself off by force of habit. "These decisions were made without thinking, a response that shouldn't have been made, and in the end needn't."

"All things considered, Primarch, you don't agree with the placing of the bomb, then?"

"No, I do not, Commander." Wrex walked away from the Primarch, returning to the console where he had been working with a grunt of resignation. "But, with all due respect, we are wasting time. The bomb site is under Cerberus control, and we do not have time to spare."

"Definitely. Liara, get whatever intelligence you can about the bomb site and Cerberus and Krogan forces in the area and send it all down to the hangar bay. Naylor, have Sergeant Roberts and her team ready to go on the first shuttle down to where the bomb is. Your team is on QRF duty. Hustle it." Naylor and Liara nodded, walking out of the room and towards the elevator in the CIC, Naylor tapping away furiously on his omni-tool to get Roberts' team onboard the shuttle and his own team armoured up and waiting in the hangar bay. Shepard followed them down a few minutes behind, having pressed the Primarch for as many extra details about the bomb as possible before heading down, still fully armoured in her custom T-5V battlesuit, to the hangar bay. It would be another long, dusty and exhausting mission to the surface of Tuchanka with little prospects of sleeping afterwards. With her helmet off, she reached down and pulled her dogtags from around her neck. Rubbing her thumb over the surface of the unique third tag that Tali had given her before attacking the Collector's base, she let the familiar feel of the khelish script repair her spirits. "Oh Tali, where are you? I could really use some of your enthusiasm right now."

* * *

**A/N: **I really can't wait until I get to the chapters with Tali, even though it's many chapters and, for Shepard, eighty days away. Writing some little bits with her set during the Citadel DLC has proven really, really fun, and Tali being there actually gives Shepard a chance to take a break from playing the unflappable commander...


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **There was a lovely thunderstorm over my house yesterday. In about five minutes there was standing water on the road outside and the roof of my crappy little car was becoming a lake. I'm at least thankful that it doesn't rust!

The good thing was that I actually got motivated enough to get on with doing some work on the story yesterday instead of moaning about how it's too hot for an English summer. Today, that summer returned, and so did the moaning, but at least the cricket was on to lift spirits. 287 for 7 isn't bad considering we had slumped early in the innings to 28 for 3...

* * *

**Day Thirty Six. Tuchankan orbit, Krogan DMZ**

Naylor opened the door to Liara's office, entering in as she finished up another long and gruelling sixteen hour long shift monitoring the Shadow Broker's network. He initially received a quiet nod from the asari as he locked the door behind him, making sure that nobody that was unwanted could enter the room over the night shift, but as he finished locking the door, Liara had closed down her terminal and had begun walking back to the sleeping compartment at the back of the room.

"Nice to see you this evening, Peter."

"Evening, Liara. Anything important to know before I get going? Translations, things to focus on?"

"Not particularly. I'm expecting a few reports from agents in the Terminus systems, but I think you can handle and analyse them before you hand them over to me in the morning." Liara shrugged off the heaviest parts of her outfit, placing them in a neat pile beside the bed while still retaining enough in case of an absolute emergency during the night shift. "Also, if you could keep an eye on anything from Omega, that would be incredibly useful. There isn't remotely enough information flowing out of that hell pit, and I'm sure that something is happening there. Though what has been happening, I don't know."

"Have you actually asked anyone yet?" Liara looked back at Naylor, raising one of her eyebrow markings at his comment. "Liara, you have agents everywhere, but have you literally just gone to someone and asked 'What is going on with Omega' yet?"

"I, oh Goddess, how could I have forgotten something like that!" Liara hung her head slightly as Naylor laughed, before seeing the funny side of it and laughing along with him. "If anything pressing happens, I trust you to make the right call."

"Well, hopefully that trust is well placed. So, expecting reports from the Terminus Systems, check for anything on Omega and, if needed, ask someone about said hellhole. I think I can cover that."

"Thank you for doing this. I'll check up on you in eight hours time then." The glass partition slid closed as Naylor took up his place at the Broker terminal. Instantly, the feeds from the Shadow Broker's network sprang up in front of him, and he set down to work, running searches throughout the network about Omega and the Terminus systems.

* * *

A few hours into the shift and Naylor was busy collecting intelligence on the Reapers' advances thowards the galactic north of the Milky Way. The synthetics had reached as far as the Armstrong Nebula, just inside the Attican Traverse, but another bound could see them shoot up the galactic east of the galaxy and take the Nubian Expanse, the Hades Nexus and the Caleston Rift, three key areas of the galaxy that the Reapers, at the moment, could waltz through without much resistance from locals or the Council races.

With the taking of the Attican Beta, the Reapers had arrived over the planet of Feros, a colony under administration by the ExoGeni corporation. Liara hadn't paid much attention to the planet, but Naylor noticed that there was still some coordinated resistance from the colony of Zhu's Hope, the capital and a former battleground during Shepard's quest to take down Saren Arterius. A few thousand colonists were holding out there, working well against the Reaper ground forces that were attacking the colony. On his own initiative, Naylor had organised a transport to evacuate them via the colony's small spaceport. They had just arrived back on the Citadel on the transport, the colonists being represented by the asari Shiala Vosen, a former bodyguard to Matriarch Benezia, when Admiral Hackett had met them on the station. Hackett and Shiala agreed that those amongst the colonists that were not suitable for military operations would be housed on the Citadel and on nearby Bekenstein while the rest would be extended positions with the Alliance. However, a good number of the original colonists, despite lacking any training, fought together against the Reaper invaders like a well trained unit of veteran asari commandos. Those colonists were formed into a small platoon, led by Shiala, and were given equipment and sent into asari space for formal training with commandos.

The night had worn on, and the promised reports from the Terminus Systems had come through over the Shadow Broker's network. They were sometimes promising – the Alliance had offered to send advisors to coordinate the defences of a number of worlds, and by and large the governors of the worlds in the Terminus systems had agreed. The haphazard defence fleets they mustered would only buy the worlds time, not throw the Reapers back, but that granted a greater chance for the civilians to escape or find shelter from the attacks. Some of the larger worlds, mainly those held and run by mercenary companies but some of the richer worlds in the Terminus were self-confident, assuming that what they could hire with their money or their mercenary fleets would be enough to save the worlds. The Alliance offered no help with the defence when these planets refused their aid, but they did give provisions for the evacuation of civilians to other worlds.

Liara's reports came from a number of the populated worlds within the Terminus systems – Garvug, Lorek and Talis Fia all had agents for Liara's network embedded on the planets, and while some reports were good, others painted a poor picture. Lorek was in the middle of an uprising, the batarians there rebelling when contact with the Hegemony was lost in the initial days of the war. Though the hegemony forces were gaining the upper hand, the uprising was not good when the Reapers were breathing down their necks.

Naylor was noting down everything he got from the reports he had received and was still awaiting the final report from the turian world of Altakiril when the first yawn snuck up on him. Recovering quickly, he began rubbing life back into his cheeks to try and stave off the inevitable drop in the attention he was paying to the Shadow Broker's network. Despite his efforts, a second yawn broke through and the Lieutenant knew that he had to do something, because otherwise he'd be fighting the urge to fall asleep well before the end of the shift.

Locking down the terminal, Naylor stepped outside Liara's office and out into the mess hall. As it was the middle of the night shift and with most of the Normandy's crew asleep in their sleeper pods and the crew quarters or relaxing while off duty in the observation lounges, the mess hall was empty aside from two of the crew members taking a coffee break from working in the main battery, but the ever-reliable coffee machine was still working. Or, more importantly from Naylor's British point of view, the hot water dispenser was still working. Taking one of the disposable paper cups from the dwindling stack beside the coffee machine, Naylor reached into one of the cupboards above the coffee machine and grabbed a small plastic tupperware box. Inside sat an ornate pot of what were the asari equivalent of tea leaves (prized by Liara to the point where she chastised Shepard any time anyone used them) alongside several small sachets filled with a mix of human tea leaves from Earth and Eden Prime.

Taking the top bag from the box, Naylor placed it at the base of his cup before placing it into the coffee maker and dispensing a torrent of scalding hot water into the cup, a few drops splashing over the side and singing the flesh on his left hand. Instinctively he pulled his hand away, hissing and shaking the boiling hot water off and into the sink. Taking up a spoon in his unharmed right hand, Naylor took the cup and began stirring away at the contents, mixing it into a deep and rich brown before removing the tea bag and placing it into the bin. Adding a dash of milk to the streaming drink, Naylor carefully brought the cup round and towards Liara's office.

Unfortunately, as the door to the office opened, Naylor suddenly spied the person hunched over the broker's terminal in the centre of the room. Instinctively he brought his non-tea carrying arm up, mentally triggering the command to lock an incinerate burst onto the figure. Unlike the standard incinerate used by Paladins, which fired a single superheated round of flash-forged silicon at low speed, Naylor's modified incinerate fired four smaller rounds at a higher speed towards the target. While the single shot could arc towards targets, Naylor's incinerate relied on the number of rounds being fired to hit its target. It was less elegant but ultimately more effective, and if Naylor was confident he could quickly fire four shots at four different targets with a single thought.

The target he was targeting now, however, reacted as he primed the incinerate burst, and she flared her biotics. The walls of the room were bathed in conflicting hues of orange and yellow from Naylor's omni-tool and incinerate, and blue from the target's biotics. But both realised who the other was at the same time, and the colours died down, leaving the room to be lit by the normal light fittings on the ceiling and the glow from Liara's massed array of computer screens.

"Commander, I'm sorry about that. Wasn't expecting you to be down here during the night shift."

"No problem, lieutenant. Just checking how everyone on the night shift is doing." The Spectre turned her attention back to the terminal she had been tapping away on as Naylor walked into the office, her red hair lying uncared for across the shoulders of her heavily creased officer's dress blue uniform. "How are you holding up?"

"Bit tired, but I have enough tea to suffice until the end of the shift. You, on the other hand, look like shit commander. No offence."

"None taken. In fact, I know I look like shit." Shepard stepped back from the terminal and leant against one of Liara's servers, taking care not to damage the important equipment stored inside. "I've barely had a chance to relax with all that has been happening. The back to back operations with the trapped turian platoon and then the turian bomb has drained my energy. As a biotic, that's not exactly nice on the bones."

Naylor walked back up, placing his cup of tea down onto the metal plate beside the terminal and turning to face the commander. "I can't really relate to that. Not a biotic."

"Nah, sometimes I hate the power that biotics grant. It's like evil blue voodoo magic that saps your energy by simply being awake. But my biotics have saved my life numerous times and I can't argue against having them."

"True."

"I imagine you've had your fair share of experience with biotics, though, given how your service history is littered with assignments with asari."

"You'd be right, but I try to refrain from making any real judgements on things I can't relate to. But, and I can't help asking, is it just the biotics or is there something else? I can't imagine that a lack of sleep can be attributed to just that."

Shepard frowned. "You're treading a thin line there, Lieutenant."

"Well, you were the one that put me in the role managing the biggest information broker network in the galaxy, commander. Being curious comes naturally with access to these terminals."

"Fine. It's the quarians that I'm worried over. Or, well, over the lack of information regarding the quarians."

"You know someone on the Migrant Fleet?"

Shepard sighed, looking back at the door as if she was regretting the decision to not leave the office as soon as Naylor had returned. "It's complicated. One of my old crew members, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy nar Rayya is with the Migrant Fleet, and it's killing me that I haven't heard from her at all."

"Were you two really good friends?"

"A lot more than that. But I really just don't want to be going there, Lieutenant." The spectre looked down at her feet. "The more I think about Tali the more I want to track the Migrant Fleet down and drag her back onto this flying circus of a vessel. Hence, and as much as I love her, it's why I try not to – we can't endanger other people's lives for the sake of our own selfish needs. Tali would definitely be the first person in the entire galaxy to say that to me if I did fly out to find her."

"I understand. Well, it's none of my business anyway." Naylor turned his attention back to the terminal in front of him. "Do you want me to do some searching for anything regarding the Migrant Fleet, commander?"

"Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. Perhaps doing so would be overstepping the trust that Liara's placed in you doing this job."

"I think she'd understand the reasoning if I did. I won't start assigning agents or anything to tracking the fleet, but I will see about collecting information from more static sources."

"Thanks for doing that, Lieutenant. Send the info up to my terminal whenever you find something."

"Of course." The commander left the room, the door automatically locking behind her as she walked into the mess hall to grab a cup of coffee and continue with her rounds. "Glyph, can you set a reminder for me to remind Liara about the search I'm starting on the Migrant Fleet?" The normally blue VI drone blinked red as his programming set up the reminder, before turning back to the normal shade of blue.

"Done, Lieutenant." Naylor began working away at the terminal, tapping out the requirements for the automated search. Anything regarding quarians, the Migrant Fleet and as a final addition the geth would be collated by the search and given to Naylor for analysis. Except that Naylor would probably just give it all, without analysing anything, to Shepard. The final report from Altakiril had come in via the broker's network, and the report, according to Glyph a short while later, was something unexpected.

The Turian Hierarchy had approached the planet and offered that, in return for defending the planet, the Hierarchy would be granted control of the planet's factories and the limited repair facilities. Despite considerable resistance from the owners of said facilities and factories, the Hierarchy's offer was accepted, and a small naval flotilla and a turian marine division, with attached auxiliaries, were sent to the planet. However, the fleets were restricted in where they could operate, unable to patrol thanks to the inhabitants of the Terminus systems and their hatred of the Council races and their laws. The flotilla was limited to patrolling the Thal and Xe Cha systems, the latter only included after fierce negotiations as it would be the only way for the turians to get warning of the arrival of the Reapers. An element of the Blood Pack, operating from a ruined base on Zada Ban, resented their appearance, but the turians responded well by sending the vorcha and krogan a number of automated heavy weapons, slaved only to fire at Reaper units and completely redesigned to not be useable without the automated controls. The krogan withdrew their complaints when they received the weapons.

Naylor archived the final report with the others from Liara's agents in the Terminus Systems, before turning to the search he was running on whatever situation was regarding the Migrant Fleet. There was disappointingly little. The fleet had last been seen assembling in the Raheel-Leyya system in the Valhallan Threshold. The fuel depot there had been completely overtaken by the quarians for an unknown reason during their stay in the system, but that was nearly a week ago, and there had been no sighting of the entire fleet since. What made the assembly strange was the huge abundance of chartered shuttles flying into and out of the system while hurriedly dropping off their cargo at the fuel depot. The other reports suggested that most quarians had been recalled from their Pilgrimages, and the few available shuttle reports that were filed on Council worlds suggested that they brought with them as much technology as they could, and gathered as many crates of dextro-specific supplies as they could. However, the fleet had disappeared from the system, believed to have moved through the mass relay to another part of the galaxy, and hadn't been seen again.

Naylor turned his attention to information regarding the geth and the worlds they controlled. The synthetics, thanks to information gathering satellites close to the Far Rim and spy drones sent into the region, had been seen to be fortifying their borders, installing orbital defence platforms, ground based cannons on planets and satellites and fighter bases hidden in asteroid fields and in the extremities of gas giants. More worrying, however, was that the synthetics were building something big inside the Dholen system, though the exact specifics of what they were building was not known. But there was nothing to suggest that the quarians had launched an invasion and been wiped out.

"Glyph, can you collate all the information in the search on the quarians and the geth and send it to Commander Shepard's cabin?"

"Of course, Lieutenant." Glyph set to work, the terminal in front of Naylor began sending the data, while a little blue bar appeared on the screen, the percentage completion going up steadily. He glanced at the clock on his omni-tool as he waited for the upload to complete. Naylor realised that the night shift was coming to a close, and with less than an hour of the shift remaining, he still hadn't taken a look on anything regarding the situation on Omega. Barely noticing as he suppressed another yawn, the Lieutenant set to work.

* * *

"Peter?" A prodding finger jabbed at his shoulder, incessantly bringing his attention away from the dreamland he was occupying and back into the real world. "Lieutenant!"

"Huh, what?" Naylor forced his eyes open, seeing Liara standing, fully dressed, between him and the door.

"You were standing asleep at the terminal!"

"Oh. Shit." Naylor stood up, peeling his face off of the metal base of the holographic terminal and cracking his neck as he subconsciously rolled his limbs to get them back to a working status. "Sorry about that. Must've happened suddenly after Shepard left."

"Yes, Glyph told me that the commander had been in here when I noticed that you were asleep and not waking up of your own accord any time soon. Do you mind if I ask what you found out when you ran that search for Shepard's benefit?"

"Not much." Naylor beckoned for Liara to come closer, shifting over slightly from where he had been standing up while sleeping to allow her to look at the condensed version of the information that he had been gathering. "The quarians were last seen in the Valhallan Threshold at a fuel depot orbiting Raheel-Leyya and near to the relay nexus in the system, where they chartered a lot of supply and transport vessels to deliver both supplies _and_ personnel to the fleet. That and all of the reports of quarians abandoning their pilgrimages suggest that they've ordered a total recall of all quarians, including even those they've _exiled_, to the fleet. They disappeared a while ago, just before the Reapers attacked Palaven, but nobody has since seen them."

"And the geth?"

"They're fortifying their borders, but I have doubts that it will be against the quarians, as the defences seem to be clustered around the three primary relays that lead to the Attican Traverse. Lots of orbital defence platforms, fighter stations and ground based cannons have been erected in the Far Rim, and there are signs of large orbital structures being created in the Dholen system. I find that strange, given that the geth were in concert with Saren and Sovereign."

"The geth helping Sovereign were revealed to Shepard to be a heretic branch that were affected by the Reapers, wanting them to guide the future of the geth rather than letting the geth consensus do that themselves."

"So that seems to support a hypothesis that the main motive of the non-heretic geth would be defending against a threat from the Reapers, not the rest of the galaxy."

"Yes, so it would seem. But looking at the way that the Reapers have invaded the galaxy so far, they seem to be directing their efforts against the more militaristic races. Perhaps the Reapers may ignore the geth until they have defeated the militaries of the humans and turians."

"I wouldn't ignore the krogan from that initial list, Liara."

"True. Especially now that we are curing the genophage, the Reapers will have to see them as a threat very soon. The Reapers have yet to reach the bulk of the Attican Traverse yet, so we won't see what their plans regarding the Perseus Veil for a while. And what did you find about Omega." Naylor switched the terminal back to the window with the information pulled from his search on Omega.

"Disappointingly little. Just so that I don't repeat information that you know, what do you know?"

"I know that Cerberus controls the station, though which cell of the organisation and who commands the forces controlling it I don't know. The whereabouts of Aria T'Loak, the previous 'ruler' of Omega if that what you want to call her, are unknown, but the organisation with which she ruled the station, which was previously an incredibly large and very well organised group, for mercenaries and criminals that is, is completely in tatters." Liara paused, racking her brain for the rest of the information she knew about Omega. "I do not know much about the current situation of the station itself, nor the majority of its inhabitants, but hopefully you were able to dig something up about that."

"Well, on the former, I can only say that there have been considerable shipments of supplies to Omega, according to a number of your agents operating within Cerberus-funded companies. A lot of it is in the form of materials, advanced metal alloys and advanced technological components, but there have been a lot of shipments of food, both levo and dextro, being transported onto the station as well."

"The dextro supplies surprise me, but the food must be for their large garrison, for the technicians that they are probably sending beyond the Omega-Four relay, or both."

"Cerberus are sending technicians through the Omega-Four relay? I thought that was impossible."

"Remember, Peter, that Shepard flew through the relay on her mission to destroy the Collectors in this very vessel, but bearing Cerberus colours. The Illusive Man has probably been sending technicians to pour over what is left of the Collector base, and hence holding Omega, or achieving an alliance with whoever ruled it, would be crucial in doing so."

"Are you trying to come up with ideas on how Cerberus ousted, who was she called, Areea T'Loak?"

"_Aria_. And yes, I can't help but think how she was ousted. I'm not particularly certain but I think she probably allowed Cerberus access to the relay and use of the station as a supply base in return for massive payments of some kind to T'Loak. The Illusive Man probably then went and stabbed her in the back, not literally of course, I doubt he could actually kill a fly if he wanted, and Cerberus forces took over the station by working their way into the gangs' and mercenaries' good books."

"It's quite elaborate, but it is defiantly feasible."

"So what could you find out about Aria T'Loak then?"

"Well, nothing. It's like she's a ghost, disappearing off the radar a few weeks before the Reapers attacked Earth. I reckon that's when Cerberus took the station." Naylor angled the monitor to show Liara the most interesting thing that he had found out. "But there have been a lot of anonymous messages being sent between the Citadel and an unregistered vessel in the Terminus Systems. What makes it interesting is that the destination on the Citadel was a codename, _Estana_."

Naylor knew the codename through Tevos, and was not sure whether Liara would know it, but the asari recognised it immediately, and putting two and two together, she came to a shocking realisation. "Ambassador Irissa is in league with Aria T'Loak? No, that can't be possible."

"Ambassador Irissa? As in the asari-focussed matriarch and ambassador to the Citadel who is vehemently against negotiating with any form of party in the Terminus Systems?" Liara looked at him pointedly, but gave him a small smile as he continued. "I doubt she would be. Irissa is definitely the sort of person who would understand the threat that T'Loak and Omega posed to Council space, even before Cerberus controlled the station, so why would she be working with a criminal?"

"Perhaps there's a supporter of T'Loak inside her staff using her codename and transmission codes? But I don't know. I'll be looking into this lead before we reach the Citadel." Naylor nodded, heading towards the door and intending to get enough rest so that he wouldn't be exhausted while taking the brief spell of shore leave on the Citadel. Before he could leave, he caught Liara quickly turning towards him in the corner of his vision and paused before his hand activated the hologram on the door. "Oh, one final thing. Did you get anything from actually asking someone?"

"Well, I ended up asking an old friend whether she knew much about the situation on Omega through her own contacts and intelligence. She only knew that control over Omega had changed and that was it."

"So it seems that everyone is in the dark over the situation on Omega then. That is pretty strange." Liara paced around the room, before stopping beside the broker terminal. "Who did you ask?"

"Just Councillor Tevos." Liara's expression turned to one of bemusement as the lieutenant deadpanned revealing his source of information, her right eyebrow marking lifting in the exact same fashion as a human's eyebrow. Naylor stifled a laugh, exiting the room and setting off towards the sleeping pods before the mess hall was too crowded with people eating their next meal rotation.

"Councillor Tevos. Councillor Tevos?" Liara pondered the thought, considering exactly how he could have gotten a favour in from the asari's representative on the Council. She then remembered their conversation on Naylor's past, and how he had served with the asari councillor on the Ascension. But there was something niggling away at the back of her mind, the asari interpreting it as the surprise of what Naylor had said despite a part of her getting the feeling that there was something off. "Why am I surprised? He knew the Councillor before so he's probably earned some favours anyway."

* * *

**A/N:** Tea is brilliant. Great for an early morning boost, an afternoon drink with cake or for staving off sleep while writing stories about fictional characters in a fictional universe. I'd pick it any day over coffee…

Is Liara getting close to working out something between Naylor and Tevos, or is she just overanalysing the situation like her Shadow Broker-y self?


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **Here's where that M rating comes into play (well, for language anyway). Because anything with a certain asari deserves an M rating…

I know most of the bits for the conversation between Aethyta and Liara come directly from the equivalent part of the game, but I like this bit of dialogue, and I can use it to allow Aethyta to really tease Liara.

* * *

**Day Thirty Seven. Citadel space station, Serpent Nebula.**

The Normandy had indeed returned to the Citadel, after a series of delays and setbacks that had dogged Mordin's creation of the genophage cure. As soon as the frigate docked, Shepard and the salarian immediately headed out, courtesy of directions from Councillor Udina, towards one of the most prestigious genetic engineering laboratories on the station, which had been cleared of all work and completely repurposed so that the cure could be tested in extreme environments that couldn't be created on the Normandy. Shepard had left the remainder of the crew to take a quick stock of supplies, equipment and effect any immediate repairs to the vessel, before taking a day-long shore leave on the Presidium ring, ready to be recalled at a moment's notice. Primarch Victus, directing the efforts of the war summit, used the opportunity to meet with several turian admirals who had made it out of the fighting over some of the Hierarchy's less-attacked worlds, debating new tactics that could be used against the Reapers discussing how to best apply upgrades and redesigns of systems with their Alliance counterparts.

Liara had sped off to meet with a number of contacts, both those under the pay of the Shadow Broker's network and those in the field of Prothean studies, needing to complete as much work as she could in person before the Normandy would speed off again into another distant warzone. Garrus and Vega stole Naylor's marine detail to take them on an unofficial mission to the repurposed docks housing refugees. Their idea was to provide as much help as they could, a mission that Naylor had suggested before finding that he would be preoccupied with work on Liara's behalf. After a good solid three hours of meeting with scientists and engineers, he would end up returning to the Normandy with support from several more translators and decoders for the Crucible's designs, and with completed contracts for numerous independent companies to move drydock and factory ships out to the Argos Rho cluster to begin assisting on the Crucible. Having completed the work he was tasked to do, he decided that a short drink at a bar in the Presidium wouldn't hurt too much, being shore leave and all.

Except the bars he found were all either shut up thanks to the war or serving only ambassadors and staff working in the embassy quarters. Cursing at the fact that the war was yet to really touch these people, Naylor made his way from the embassy quarters towards the Commons, where he knew of a number of places he could at least go to for a drink. Arriving at one place, he took one of the available seats by the bar, paying no attention to the people already drinking and eating there.

"What can I get you, kid?" The bartender, an asari, had an uncharacteristically gruff voice. She looked down on where he sat, almost eyeing him up in the process.

"What have you got?"

"Plenty. But no sex. I just cleaned the bar." The asari laughed, scrubbing away with a wet cloth at a part of the bar that she had evidently missed in the last few minutes. "That and those C-Sec goons may ask questions. Should've stayed on Illium. Probably should go back, it's still as safe as here."

"You may regret saying that." The bartender looked at him, cocking her head slightly. "Reapers have been sending refugee ships full of husks into Tasale."

"Fuck. I had good friends there."

"Tell me about it. I had good friends on Earth. Well, colleagues, but still."

"Right, you're not a kind of guy who keeps friends then. So, are you going to waste a matriarch's time or order a drink? There are other people in this crappy bar that I could be serving."

"Ah, just give me something that's got a kick but it's not too strong to leave me on the floor. Hang on, you're a matriarch?"

"Do I look like a maiden to you?"

"Ah, I've only met two matriarchs in my time. I can't really tell the difference." Naylor knew that that was a lie – he had spent enough time around asari to tell most matriarchs apart from the rest of the species. This one, however, was far from what he would call a 'normal' matriarch, and that was what confused him a bit.

"You should live longer, human." The matriarch laughed to herself, pouring the human a glass of honey mead before setting it down in front of him. "The name's Aethyta. Matriarch Aethyta, technically, but say that damn title and I'll warp your ass the next time you step within a thousand light years of here. I may be no commando, but I've had a thousand years to learn dirty."

"Ah, that's difficult. I think a thousand light years would include Tuchanka."

"Tuchanka, eh? I like the place but then I'm biased. Half krogan."

"Half-krogan eh? So what, any kids you'd have would be a quarter krogan? Well, unless the father was krogan, or the father was another half-krogan asari."

Aethyta laughed, the sound rising up from deep inside her. "You're not so bad, you know, human. And at least you didn't call a non-carrying asari parent the other mother. Got pissed when that red-headed famous spectre your species has called me that the last time I saw her, as she said that's what a human would be called. I told her I wasn't a human. Anthropocentric bag of dicks."

"So you've fathered a child with an asari?"

"Athame's ass, kid, I've popped little asari out with a hanar in my time. But the kid I had with another matriarch didn't go exactly well – the mother abandoned me before the kid was born, probably to save both of us against the backlash of an asari-asari child. No matter what people tell you about that 'pureblood' shit, it's all crap."

"Couldn't agree more. Been working with an asari on the Normandy, a Doctor T'Soni. She says she's a kid of two asari and she's a damn sight better than most of the people. Asari like her prove that the entire stigma around being a pureblood is definitely misplaced." Naylor missed Aethyta's slight twitch as he mentioned Liara's name. "Hell, in these days paying that daughter of yours a visit wouldn't be too bad an idea, what with the Reapers and all." When Aethyta paused, Naylor pressed forward. "You do know who your daughter is, right?"

"Ah, fuck, of course I know who the kid I had with the matriarch is." Aethyta spat back, not angry but feeling the emotion inside. It streamed from the fact that she knew that meeting Liara was out of the question – if the matriarchs found out, Liara's safety could then be on the line. "I just doubt she'd know me from a hole in the ground."

"She'd probably like to meet you, in any case."

"Yeah, we'll see how that goes. I doubt that she needs to find out."

"Unless she already knows, _dad_." Naylor turned around in his seat to see Liara walk up to the bar, leaning against it as she arrived there. "The asari matriarch used by the asari republics to track my movements? I've known for quite a while. I'm a very good information broker."

"Hold on. Wait a second? What?" Aethyta laughed at Naylor's reaction, channelling her slight frustration over not being able to meet Liara into laughter as his head snapping back and forth between the two asari. "You're her father? And you knew you were her daughter?"

"Yes, lieutenant. I never thought that I would say that I knew about Aethyta here until I overheard your conversation. It forced my hand, as the human saying goes. And plus, if I had talked to her, they may have sent someone less sympathetic as a replacement." Liara paused, ploking herself down onto one of the bar stools. "Besides, it's hardly the time for family reunions. I thought you were due to meet me at the Normandy Naylor?"

"She's got you wrapped around her little finger, kid. Not exactly the best place to be, given what I've seen." Aethyta smiled, the corner of her mouth raised slightly in a damnable smirk.

"There was some free time around, but this isn't my place anymore. One final thing I need to do. I'll check in back at the Normandy." Naylor pulled himself off the bar stool, walking away as Aethyta's stare drifted slightly downwards. Aethyta quickly changed her attention to the bottle of honey mead sitting on the bar in front of her, feeling as if Liara had caught where her gaze was heading, and she was right.

"Must you stare holes in every person's rear?"

"Liara, I'm a fan of asses and he is a pretty fine specimen of what humanity has to offer. You shouldn't be such a prude, just loosen up a little. Perhaps you should take him to bed, see what he's really packing underneath that uniform." The matriarch's voice turned husky as she finished the sentence, and Liara cringed in her seat.

"FATHER!" Liara was fuming, and Aethyta began to believe her first chance to talk with her daughter was slipping from her grasp. Pouring two glasses, she passed one to Liara before downing the one in front of her in one go. Liara sipped contently her own drink, staring at the matriarch in front of her. Her expression could be correctly read as her distrusting the matriarch, father or not, in front of her.

"Don't give me that look. I mean, come on! You can't blame the matriarchs for keeping an eye on you."

"Their fears are misplaced. I am not my mother."

"Well, you did threaten to flay someone alive. With your mind."

"I was trying to make them take me seriously. I wasn't going to actually do it." Liara paused, looking into the depths of her glass for a few seconds. Her head popped up as she realised just exactly what the matriarch knew. "You bugged my office on Illium!"

"That'd be the logical conclusion, yeah. But the matriarchs aren't going to do anything to you. Especially in the middle of this damn war, when they're running scared over the Reapers."

"My reports don't concentrate much on the asari military's actions against the Reapers. So far we're lucky to have escaped the onslaught."

"Well, other than those commando operations to human colonies, we've been relying on the humans' generosity for now. But come on, you know how the asari military works – infiltration and sabotage."

"But against Reaper forces, that's-"

"I know. About as useful as tits on a hanar. Though I heard from some old friends that Lidanya thought it would be a good idea to give asari commandos pointers in fighting like humans and turians do. Seems to have been a good call."

"Ah. That was Lieutenant Naylor."

"You're kidding. A human? That human? I at least thought it would be a turian, stick up his or her ass or not, given their species' heritage."

"I'm not kidding." Liara took a longer sip at her own drink, settling down onto one of the stools at the bar. "I reckon it was better to teach them to fight like a human than a krogan, though. Their tactics are terribly wasteful of lives. Though you would probably take offence at that, being the daughter of an asari commando and a krogan warlord."

"So that makes you a quarter krogan!"

"That's not how it works!"

"I'm a thousand years old. I've had kids with a hanar. Don't tell me how asari reproduction works!"

"Wait, I have a half-sister who's part hanar?"

"I thought you said that's not how it worked?"

"Aethyta!" Liara fixed the bartender an icy glare, her eyes boring holes into her forehead. The matriarch laughed as she took another sip from his glass.

"I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist the chance. All I'm saying, Liara, is that if you're feeling the urge to head butt something, it's genetic."

"I have never wanted to head butt anything."

"Really? Not even a little bit? Come on!"

"I do not head butt people!"

"Alright, fine. Just don't go all blood rage on me!"

"Or what? You may tell the matriarchs to order a hit on me?" Aethyta resisted the urge to suspend her daughter in the largest singularity field she could muster.

"Hey, that's not going to happen, ever. I couldn't do it, for Benezia's sake. She and I were together for more than a century, it would just feel wrong."

"You really loved her."

"Of course I loved her! She was so smart, always thinking about something or another. Really nice too, helluva lot nicer than I am." Aethyta poured another measure of honey mead into each of the three glasses, emptying the bottle as she did so. "And damn, that rack. I mean, even before she hit the matriarch stage…" The matriarch let off a low whistle, causing Liara to blush horribly.

"Oh, Goddess, you don't need to tell me everything!"

"Nezzie was the only one who ever listened to me when I said the asari were stuck in the past. The only difference was that I wanted us to stand more on our own, while she wanted bigger alliances with the other species. But look what her ideas got us in the end. Human ships doing the heavy lifting for us while our fleets get their act together. And it's not exactly as if I wanted us to be like that human group, Terra Firma. Or Cerberus."

"Were the differences of opinion why you left each other?"

"Was that why it ended? Nah. Well, maybe. Mostly it ended because she wanted to solve things the smart way. I wanted to fight everything."

"Those aren't exactly mutually exclusive methods."

"Yeah. I bet you and your human boyfriend here have racked up quite a body count over the years."

"Lieutenant Naylor is not my boyfriend. And every time I've been on the Normandy, Shepard has called on others to help her rather than myself."

To Aethyta, the way that Liara had dismissed Naylor being a boyfriend was suspicious, a point for future investigation. But it would have to wait until Liara gave her a chance, and there were more opportunities to annoy her daughter over her heritage.

"Why is that?"

"Shepard believes my best use is outside of the field of combat, and this is something that I agree with - she and I are very comparable in biotic ability and she is right when she says that I am not someone that is built for combat."

"But you can still fight, right?"

"Of course. Shepard being alive is down to me and an associate fighting through mercenaries under the Shadow Broker's employ to recover her body."

"So you can fight, but then again of course you'd be able to – you're a quarter krogan."

"That one was on purpose!"

"Yeah, it was. But it was pretty clear that Benezia was leaving when she did. You can't be the wise councillor when you're married. Mainly sex appeal – most species only pay attention if they want to have sex with you, so you have to be available, mysterious."

"What? That's not true! Shepard listens to me, and she has a girlfriend!"

"True. But you're single. How much does Lieutenant Peter here listen to you?" Aethyta nodded her head in the direction that Naylor had departed in. She had timed her opportunity perfectly.

"You think Peter is my-? Surely you were joking? No, no!" Liara shuffled awkwardly in her seat, cradling the glass in her hand as she tried to distance herself from any thought of Aethyta being correct.

"I'm joking! I made Nezzie promise me that she'd let you go your own way, though, no matter what she wanted. I knew you'd be special, kid, any daughter of hers would be. I told her, 'You're treating her like a baby bird, Nezzie. She's gonna raise one helluva storm with those little wings of hers'."

"Little Wing?" Liara's voice faltered at the mention of her childhood nickname, a name that she cherished the memories that came with it.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, thanks."

"It's better to remember her like this, than whatever she became with that Saren bastard."

"It wasn't her fault. She was trying to stop him, guide him to become a force of good, but she was indoctrinated."

"Look, I heard stories about the Reapers messing with your head."

"They're more than stories. I've seen it. Rana Thanorptis, a neuroscientist, blew herself and several senior commandos up because of what Sovereign did to her on Virmire. And every Cerberus soldier is a slave of the Reapers now. Benezia fought it with every fibre of her being. She even broke free at the end, helping the Commander before shooting herself to save them the trouble. Wrex found a memory sphere while removing her body and the bodies of her commandos from the station, and he passed that on to me a few days ago. He said that she'd said I had made her proud." Liara felt a small tear form in the corner of her eye. Aethyta noticed it too, leaning across to wipe it away as it fell. "I could pass it on to you if you wanted to, you know." She tailed off, not knowing where to continue.

"No. It would have been meant for you. Damn, all this time I blamed Nezzie for it. I'm a thousand years old and I still don't know crap. Thanks for telling me." Aethyta took a final, long draw from her glass, emptying it and placing it gingerly on the top of the bar. "Take care of yourself out there, okay kid?"

"I will, dad."

"And tell your human friend to take care of you if you don't. I don't want anything happening to my little girl, here." Aethyta pulled Liara in close, hugging her over the top of the bar. "Listen, I've called a few friends. Commandos, Eclipse girls who owe me some favours from centuries ago. They're all yours. Just tell them where to go."

"You're giving me asari commandos?"

"Well you're too old for me to buy you one of those damn human ponies."

"You're the best father a girl could wish for. I need to go, but thanks for talking."

"Of course, Little Wing." Liara left the bar, walking back towards the elevator that would take her on the first stage of her journey back to the Normandy's dock. "Hey, Liara?"

"Yes?"

"I'll be here, you know, for whenever you need to talk or just generally escape things."

"Thanks dad."

* * *

_Slightly earlier_

Naylor made his escape from what he feared would turn into a family confrontation in the commons, heading towards a skycar rank and a taxi that could take him to the embassy district. When he had arrived, he had dropped a message to Tevos. The councillor had replied quickly, clearing a long period in her schedule for when Naylor expected to finish up with the errands he had been running. When Naylor checked the time as the taxi pulled up outside the asari embassy, Naylor realised that he was right on time.

Walking up the steps into the embassy, Naylor rounded a corner and literally walked straight into Mallene Areta, one of Tevos' two bodyguards. After the initial shock of walking into the asari, Naylor shook his head clear of the slight dizziness, smiling as he realised who he had run into. Mallene, however, barrelled into the human, crushing him against her chest in a bear hug.

"Naylor! How are you, you old thing?" Naylor returned the embrace as soon as Mallene lessened the pressure she was exerting, actually allowing Naylor's arms to move from where they were trapped against his sides.

"Old? I'm less than a tenth your age!"

"Details, details." The commando released Naylor, pulling him instead into a side embrace as she turned around and led him into the elevator up to where Tevos' office sat high above the Presidium floor. "I was on my way to meet you outside the embassy. Tevos was pretty much dragged kicking into an unscheduled meeting with Udina about an hour ago. The weasel still wants to flesh out some of the specifics to do with the treaty. Apparently he wants more human concessions, free supplies for Alliance ships in asari space and money reimbursements. I think the human saying would be that the person to promote Udina to Ambassador is in hell right now."

"As much as I agree, that was a tad insensitive Mallene."

"Oh yeah, because of what happened to Arcturus. Sorry, I forgot about that."

"Well, half of the politicians on the station were career, only caring about getting votes before they were elected and maintaining their relations with the investors and CEOs backing their election campaigns afterwards. They're like the bane of the normal universe."

"So are you saying that Tevos is in among those then?"

"Tevos is far from a career politician. She's entirely different." The par exited the elevator as it reached their destination, dropping out into the atrium where the portion of the embassy staff working relaxed during their breaks and met others during their working hours.

"I have to ask, why the hell does a councillor clear a one hour long period of her working day to meet one of her former bodyguards?"

"Has she not told you and Serenya yet?"

"Told us what?"

Naylor leant in close to the commando, whispering quietly. "Yiothesia."

"Yio what?"

"It's an old asari custom. Tevos is the mother."

"Did you get the councillor pregnant?"

"Of course not!" Mallene burst into laughter, before abruptly calming down to stare with a blank face at the Lieutenant, pausing in her tracks. Naylor returned the stare for a short second before they both sniggered simultaneously, the commando laying a hand on his shoulder as they continued on.

"I do know what it is, Pete. Morila accidentally dropped that particular fact while we were in a conversation about the Normandy and Tevos explained it all to us. I'm just surprised we didn't pick up on it earlier - the councillor lights up any time she hears of the Normandy. It's like she's a new person then."

The pair arrived at Tevos' office, entering to find that Serenya was taking a look at something on Tevos' terminal while Morila stood behind and to the side of the other commando. By the way the attendant's head snapped up as Naylor and Mallene entered, what Serenya was doing at wasn't exactly permitted. "Serenya, good to see you again."

"Naylor! Great to see you again." The commando got up from the terminal to greet Naylor, and Morila used the time to dive in and purge whatever Serenya had done on the terminal from existence. The commandos both rounded on the young attendant, chiding her in a soldier's usual friendly manner for always sticking to the rules. "Come on, Morila! Get the stick out of your ass and have some fun once in a while!"

"Miss T'Sova, please! If the councillor finds you using her computer to look up images of the nature you were browsing, I do not know what kind of repercussions would follow!"

"That's a fancy way of saying she was looking at turian porn, Morila. You should join Serenya and I when we hit a bar one night. Naylor, you should tag along as well! Be just like old times."

"Wish I could Mallene, but Shepard's insistent about soldiers getting back to the Normandy _without_ a hangover. That and I actually have to do stuff now and again, instead of whatever the two of you do."

"You underestimate what we have to do Naylor. Sometimes Tevos pays us to eat copious amounts of food in fancy and expensive restaurants."

"I do not pay you to eat food, Mallene." The group turned as Tevos walked into the room, the hem of her dress flowing behind her. "I do, however, pay you to eat slowly, yet your appetite seems to be your defining characteristic and it wastes me a lot of money." Mallene smirked, playfully sticking her tongue out at the councillor as she passed the commander, walking towards Naylor and Serenya. Tevos embraced the human, kissing him on the cheek. "Kori, it is so good to see you."

"And you Celia." The councillor smiled as she felt Naylor warming to her touch. In her head, she dared to hope that the motherly love she felt towards the human was being reciprocated, and if things like this were to be believed, her hopes were being fulfilled. "How was your meeting with Councillor Udina?"

"Painful to say the least." Tevos led the group over to the couch, dropping down into the leather confines in a rather undignified manner. "Mallene has probably told you that he is insisting on far greater reparations to the Alliance. It has got to the point that he wants asari worlds to organise shipments of supplies to the Alliance ships, even when we are diverting _all _of our resources to ready our own fleets. He is getting incredibly impatient, trying to bully his way to getting what he wants." She paused, remembering the events of the past hour. "But enough of the problems I am facing. How are you kori?"

"Fine, with all things considered. Mallene had just invited me to join her and Serenya on a night out. She was also telling me about how she's planning to get Morila drunk beyond recognition at some point in the near future. I think I need to see that."

"That would be a memorable sight, but so long as she's fine enough to read a datapad the day after, I won't stop you." Morila's jaw dropped as the councillor essentially gave Mallene the permission to take the attendant out and have her thoroughly smashed in as quick a time as the commando could manage. If Naylor knew Mallene right, the night would also see Morila spending the night, however coherently, in some stranger's apartment or hotel room as well.

The conversation went on for a good while, the five people in the room enjoying some of the more extravagant tales from Tevos' daily life as a councillor, laughing at the commandos' more ridiculous stories from their centuries of service, and smiling when the commandos relentlessly mocked Morila for her dedication to her job. For Tevos, Morila reminded her of her younger self. She spent all her life on her job, working with barely any sleep from the small apartment that she owned down in the lower end of Kithoi Ward. Tevos had had the same approach under the previous councillor, and it brought a smile to her face.

Understandably, Naylor stayed away from talking about being on the Normandy. The mood was upbeat, and he didn't want to ruin it by mentioning anything about the war. Unfortunately, time was elusive, and before he knew it, his omni-tool was blinking away, telling him he was due back at the Normandy for the planned meeting with Liara following the day's errands. Apologising profusely, Naylor began making his way back out to the atrium where he could begin making his way to the Normandy's dock. Tevos, though, followed him out the door, slowly walking alongside him as he wound his way down the corridor towards the elevator.

"Tevos, I-" Naylor was interrupted by the councillor weaving her arm under his own, the purple fingers interweaving with his own pale digits.

"I too wish that there was more time to spend forgetting things, but I understand your problem. A lack of time is something I struggle with every day." Naylor looked inquisitively towards his adopted mother, wondering where Tevos could get that idea for what he was thinking, even though it was true. It earned a slight chuckle from the councillor. "Anyone could read your face like a book. I know you want more time away from all of this, and I do too."

"You know you're not so bad behind all that councillor stuff." Tevos laughed, getting a few querying glances from the embassy staff scurrying about the corridor around her. As they reached the stairs down into the atrium, Tevos stopped, turning to face the lieutenant square on.

"Listen, I know you still have some reservations about how far I take all this, but-"

"Tevos, it is fine. And the more I think about it, the more it just feels normal to me."

"Does this remind you of... of what happened to your real parents?"

"A little, but I try to focus on the good memories I have of them. And I haven't had someone to just talk to in a very long time, even if it is over an extranet message. I like it."

"So do I." Naylor smiled, squeezing the councillor's shoulder and kissing her on the cheek for a brief second before heading out through the now empty atrium to the elevator. Tevos called put after him. "Goddess go with you… son." When Naylor laughed as he passed through the elevator doors, Tevos smiled in response. "What is it?"

"I think I prefer it when you call me kori." The councillor waved goodbye as the elevator doors closed, whisking the human lieutenant down towards the Presidium floor. Tevos remained where she stood, waiting for a few seconds before slowly lowering her hand to her side.

"Please, Athame, keep him safe."

* * *

Liara was waiting beside the elevator that she would be taking back to the Normandy's dock when Naylor ran into her. True to the form that Naylor had picked up on, she was looking at a datapad as he walked up beside her. As he stopped, barely within her field of vision, she held out the datapad to him, implying for him to take it. "This is what I've been working on during the past few hours on the Citadel. A few days ago, the Serrice Guard attacked and destroyed a Cerberus facility near the ruins of Saren Arterius' old base of operations on the planet of Virmire."

"That was where you set off the nuke to destroy the krogan breeding centre, correct?"

"Yes. However, while I want to take a look at what is left of the facility, I'm not certain that Shepard will give me a chance to divert the Normandy from operations over Tuchanka if I ask." The images on the datapad, taken by a spy drone a few days before the Serrice Guard's attack, showed signs of a massive base being built in the blackened and bombed out ruins of the old facility, the new installations heavily fortified with drones, mechs and automated defences. There was a great deal of smoke and dust in the area obscuring crucial details and reducing the clarity of the image, thanks to the effects of shuttles landing non-stop and efforts to expand the available space with blasting charges. "I'm not sure why Cerberus would be operating a base in such a hazardous area, but it doesn't sit with me well. I'm not even sure what they would be using the base for."

"Liara, I know enough about you to know that when you say 'I'm not sure' you have a million ideas running around your head."

"You're right. Saren used the facility to study indoctrination as well as to breed krogan. Perhaps, like with Saren, the facility is being used for research into indoctrination." Liara handed the datapad back. "No matter what, we need to take a look at the facility in person."

"It wouldn't hurt. But why am I getting the feeling that there is something else going on here."

"Yes, unfortunately there is. The commandos reported back to Matriarch Lidanya that the facility had a lot of tech related to biotics. A number of the more biotically sensitive commandos reported that when they arrived at the place their biotics were being _affected_ by something." Liara looked up as the elevator began its journey to dock D24. "My worry comes from the fact that the commandos reported that several shuttles escaped the facility before they could cut it off. What's more, I fear that, what with all this work on biotics that they saw at the facility, they may target other places. Importantly, they could target the Jon Grissom Academy's Ascension project."

"That's the Alliance-run program for biotics, correct?"

"Yes. We're already very fortunate that the Reapers haven't attacked the Petra Nebula yet, but the Alliance would be stretched if they did."

"And Cerberus could be well placed to offer 'assistance' to the students there while the Alliance would be distracted by the Reapers going for Elysium. I see your worry. But what about asari research facilities? There are a lot of them doing work on human biotics, as well as some limited training for asari commandos and human biotics."

"I pray to the Goddess that they don't try to attack those. Too many promising asari become targets of slavers and pirates after they leave those schools, and where they started with the prospect of becoming someone great, many end up in the slums and pits of the galaxy." Liara looked at her omni-tool as the interface began blinking, indicating that a message had just been received. "Ah, excellent! Captain Arteri accepted my request to talk to her about the mission. She's currently with the Guard's transport down at dock 422 by the C-Sec academy. I'll be heading down there now to see what's been going on. Do you want to find out what happened at the facility?"

Naylor cancelled the elevator's journey up to the Dock D42, sending it again down to the floor of the Presidium where they could get to the C-Sec Academy from on foot. "I may as well seeing as how Vega and Garrus had stolen my squad. Lead the way."

* * *

**A/N: **Two updates in two days, and there will be another _two_ to follow on Sunday. Thanks to a summer camp that I'm helping run over the course of next week, and the obligatory "Panic with two days to go until the camp begins" meeting tomorrow, when I would normally be updating, i decided to throw this one out today, and then do two more on Sunday to cover next Monday and Wednesday. So I'm both spoiling you and saying "Sorry, no updates for a while!" at the same time...

One of the things that I really enjoy about this story is the relation between Naylor and Tevos, and how it starts as Tevos being just a parent on paper a year before Mass Effect 3 starts, to Tevos feeling as a mother towards Naylor and progressing (now) to where Naylor reciprocates the kind of feelings that Tevos is extending towards him. The version of Tevos that I'm writing for this story is a fantastic character to write material for, and it's one of the joys of the story to just write about the two of them being together. That said, given that we all know what's coming down the line, there's one particular bit of the story coming up very soon where things get very interesting. (smiles in an incredibly evil fashion)


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** Before I get on with the usual author's note, having read some of the other stories on the site for a reference, I've demoted Galaxy at War to a T rating. So, if you're looking for the story for any reason, remember it's no longer an M rated story…

Also, if in this and the next chapter you read anything that sounds remotely like a cricket term, blame Test Match Special...

**A/N 2: **One of my favourite characters to play as in Mass Effect 3's multiplayer were the Project Phoenix Vanguard and Adept. I love the entire idea of someone wielding _biotic whips_, and while those classes are pretty bad (power-wise) against armour and shields, the crowd-control that the class has is really fun, especially sending all those lovely husks flying as soon as they get close with the timely use of a Smash power…

So, because I enjoy the entire idea of the ex-Cerberus multiplayer characters, I'm introducing a new character that features in the post-war ideas that I have, but to fulfil some of the aspects of his inclusion in the post-war stuff, it's necessary to add him into the story at this point during the war.

* * *

**Day Thirty Seven. Citadel station, Serpent Nebula**

Naylor and Liara were waiting in the elevator from the Presidium towards the C-Sec academy, the first stage of their journey to where the Serrice Guard's transport vessel was refuelling and resupplying in Dock 422, the old dock used by the SSV Normandy SR-1 during Shepard's chase of the rogue Spectre Saren Arterius. It brought back many memories of what had been a happier time for the asari, back where there was only the threat of galactic-wide extinction, rather than the extinction actually happening. As the elevator travelled towards their location, Liara began briefing Naylor on what she already knew about the Serrice Guard's operation on Virmire.

"The Guard were called to Virmire after Alliance monitoring stations in the area noticed a lot of activity in the Hoc-1 relay. Upon sending a spy probe to the planet, they got the pictures of the facility that I showed you. As you can tell, they didn't exactly know what they were going to be facing when they landed, with all the dust and poor quality on the images." The elevator opened out into the C-Sec academy, Liara barely pausing in her explanation as they crossed the open space of the academy into the next elevator, taking them up to Dock 422. "Captain Arteri deployed her commandos for a guerrilla attack, snipers attacking the Cerberus patrols from hills several miles away from the base before her squads attacked the base itself. Predictably, the commandos got in and out without casualties, but some of the Cerberus personnel were able to escape from the area to a hidden space station in the outskirts of the Hoc system, from where they transferred to transport to take them to Sigurd's Cradle. The commandos gave pursuit, but turned back soon after."

"What happened to the base after the attack?"

"The commandos pulled everything that they could from the base and set demolition charges everywhere within the facility. It's now a pile of rubble."

"Fun. I'm guessing that we're not here to recount everything, but you have an agenda?"

"Yes. I will forward the overall report to your omni-tool when we finish, but there are a few things that I want to find out about from Arteri herself."

They exited the elevator up to the docking bay, spying the person they were in dock 422 to see, her black markings contrasting against the purple of her own face and setting her apart from the comparatively unmarked commandos that made up the rest of her unit, along with the demeanour that betrayed her length of service. The commandos gave them a path as they walked towards the captain standing at the docking ramp to their transport.

Captain Masi Arteri was an experienced commando with nearly three hundred years of service with the Serrice commando militias. Born to two asari over five hundred years ago, she was the original member of the Serrice Guard, setting the special unit up from one of the smallest Serrice commando units without any significant support from the more powerful and respected matriarchs in the city. In the hundred years since they had been set up, Arteri's unit became nothing short of celebrities, stopping the enslavement of asari colonies within the Terminus Systems and the northern fringes of the then-uncolonised Attican Traverse in a self-proclaimed crusade against the Blood Pack, and it was their actions then that meant that, compared to the rest of the races in the galaxy, there were very few asari colonists out in the Terminus. The last action in their crusade, on the colony of Asteria in the Hades Nexus, made them immediately famous. Though only five of the sixty of them made it out of the operation, they became the most famous commando unit in the whole of asari space when the Blood Pack units sent towards the colony were decimated and forced to surrender after a protracted war on the surface of the planet, after both groups' ships were destroyed in space combat.

Another disaster hit them in 2183, again on Asteria, where Geth forces attacked the colony and caught the Guard unawares. Although fifty of the sixty asari in the Serrice Guard were killed by the end of the Geth attack, the ten survivors had repelled the geth forces completely, once again saving the colony and allowing Alliance fleets a chance to garrison the surrounding system as a precaution against Geth reinforcements exiting the Perseus Veil. Arteri had spent the past three years with the Guard being inactive, tearing apart one of the smaller Serrice commando units, the 17th Commando Group, to replenish her losses and train the commandos up for more missions in the wider galaxy. She saw the human and asari making their way through her commandos, remembering the request she had granted a short while ago.

"Doctor Liara T'Soni, I presume?" The young asari in front of the captain nodded, extending her hand in a fashion that Arteri recognised as human. She took the offered hand, shaking it in a style that she, and a number of other asari, found to be rather impractical. "Captain Masi Arteri, Serrice Guard. And your companion?"

"Staff Lieutenant Naylor, N7. I serve on the SSV Normandy alongside Commander Shepard."

"The Naylor? As in the human that taught asari commandos a few tricks?" The human nodded in agreement. "Good to meet you. I've heard good things of the tactics that you taught, and hopefully they'll pay off. I can have the overall mission report sent to you via the extranet, Doctor, but I doubt that's you're here for a normal debriefing."

"Yes. Can you tell us about the technology that you found at the Virmire facility? I'm interested in what you found with regards to biotics."

"Ah, yes, the technology. Well, it was nothing like we've seen before, even compared to some of the more crazy prototypes, and absolutely nothing like anything we have in Citadel Space. My second in command has been working on trying to match it with developmental work from Noveria, but it's a dead end with regards to finding any matching pieces of technology." Arteri motioned with her hand for another asari, this time with a face clear of tattoos and markings, to hand her a datapad. She brought up the information stored on it – particularly what her deputy had matched to the technology, or not matched as this particular case case was. "All that we really know is that the technology is only designed to work with human DNA, but the purpose of the tech itself is currently unclear. It kind of resembles the sort that one would use to genetically augment biotic ability, tailoring DNA to make a biotic more powerful, more precise, and everything in between."

"So Cerberus are dabbling in some serious genetic engineering of biotics at this facility, and they escape with personnel on shuttles as the Serrice Guard are landing. Kind of suggests that they are trying their best to augment their own forces' capabilities by enlisting biotics, however voluntarily, and then upgrading them. We already know they've been indoctrinating their soldiers, so why not upgrade them at the same time as a part of the process?"

"But indoctrinating is known to reduce the abilities of the individual, Peter. Saren himself admitted that when Shepard faced him on Virmire. So why would Cerberus indoctrinate them at the same time as upgrading their biotics, when The Illusive Man no doubt knows about this loss of ability."

"Perhaps, Doctor, the genetic engineering was done before the indoctrination process? The subjects of the engineering could then be given time to get used to their abilities before full indoctrination." Liara nodded, storing the theory away in the back of her brain before indicating for Arteri to continue on. "Unfortunately, the data that we found that wasn't destroyed by Cerberus told us that the shuttles that escaped would, under normal circumstances, be heading towards another station with their charges from the Virmire facility. We followed the trail of the shuttle launches and found an abandoned space station that was destroyed remotely as we approached it."

"Were you able to recover anything from the space station?"

"Unfortunately, no." Arteri pulled up the mission log on the datapad, skim reading as she remembered the details from what happened afterwards. "A mercenary group, the Blue Suns, were in the region of space that we had pursued Cerberus to, and they tried to attack us before we could extract anything from the wreckage." Liara paused, running through the potential ramifications of what the mercenaries had unwittingly done.

"Do you believe that they were going to salvage what they could from the station for themselves?" Arteri nodded in response to Liara's question, everyone in the conversation immediately understanding the incredible problem that would likely result from the mercenaries' actions. "By the Goddess, what have they done?"

"Those mercenaries have placed them and others at incredible risk." Though the war against the reapers had barely been running for a month, there was considerable evidence for those who paid attention that suggested the power of indoctrination. Rana Thanoptis had been exposed to Sovereign on Virmire for a very short amount of time, less than a month, but she had been forced by the indoctrination to blow herself up in the presence of a number of high-ranking asari commandos when the Reapers were barely making headway into the galaxy. Naylor began pacing, thinking of the difficulty in limiting the damage that the mercenaries had caused. "Were your commandos able to track their vessels after they finished salvaging?"

"No. Well not the Serrice Guard anyway." Arteri's datapad changed to a view of the system that the commandos had found the station in, as well as the systems around it. "We were chased away before they started salvaging, but Captain Lemaes' 4th Armali Commando group were in the area and they have been silently tailing the mercenaries back to their base of operations. We're heading out there as soon as we've dealt with the final problem from the mission."

"And that is?" Arteri didn't answer, instead motioning with her hand for Liara and Naylor to follow her into the transport vessel, passing squads of commandos preparing their gear for the mission ahead. Many of them nodded or acknowledged Arteri as she passed them, but a few stares were thrown in the directions of Naylor and Liara, walking on the tail of the captain. The trio walked along the gangplank into the asari-built transport, before proceeding through the CIC and into the elevator.

"I wouldn't say 'that', more 'he'. We picked a straggler up after Cerberus finished evacuating the facility, but he hasn't talked to any of us since."

"Well, he is Cerberus. Despite what happened with Shepard's team and the Collectors, they don't exactly like aliens."

"That's why I am glad you brought Staff Lieutenant Naylor, Doctor T'Soni. Hopefully he'll be more willing to talk to a human rather than an asari." The elevator stopped on the lower deck, the trio exiting out into the hangar bay and taking an abrupt turn into the transport's small but incredibly secure brig. The many cells in the brig were all protected by shimmering blue biotic fields, reminding Liara of the prothean device she had been caught in when she had first met Shepard on Therum. "I hope you'll understand the security precautions. When we encountered him, he was fighting Cerberus soldiers and he overran and started attacking two of my own commandos before we could restrain him. Huntress Imani, can you open up our guest's cell for us?"

"Of course, Captain." The huntress deactivated the biotic barrier around the exit to the cell, but she engaged a set of biotic dampeners within the entire complex. "Biotic dampeners are active throughout the cell complex. If the prisoner escapes, regulations deem that force is authorised to take the target down only."

"Thank you. Lieutenant, Doctor, this way." Arteri led the pair to the furthest cell from the entrance, its occupant kept within a limited stasis field that stopped him from making sharp movements but allowing him to still move about within the confines of the metal cage he was kept in. "Lieutenant, after you."

Naylor entered the prison cell, hovering at the edge of the stasis field containing the prisoner inside. As he passed through the entrance to the cell, the occupant raised his head as quickly as the stasis field allowed, the gold helmeted head staring directly at Naylor's unarmoured form as the prisoner pulled the rest of his body off the floor. "You, you are not asari."

"No, I'm human. Same as you."

"I am no human, not worthy of that name. Call me a monster, a freak, just not the species that I used to be." The details of the prisoner's armour became clearer to Naylor as the form raised himself to his feet. The armour was a dull, dead silver, the edges smoothed and weathered from use, while the trim on the other plates was a deep crimson, the colour of blood. "They did this to me, took away my humanity and changed me." His speech was slow and drawn out, also likely a side effect of the stasis field restraining him.

"Who is they? Cerberus?"

"DO NOT SAY THAT NAME!" The figure roared at Naylor from behind his helmet, the effect dumbed down but the cry was still incredibly loud and fearsome. Naylor couldn't help but think that the person definitely had a good set of lungs to be able to shout like that while in a stasis field. "They tore away my life and sent me to become a slave to their own wills."

"Where was your life beforehand?"

"I do not know."

"Do you have a name?"

"I don't." The helmeted figure turned around, staring at the back of his cell. "They referred to the project I was forced to be a part of as 'Phoenix'."

"Cerberus-" Naylor stopped himself, remembering the person's hatred of the terrorist organisation and making a personal reminder to never say the name of the organisation again. "They called your project 'Project Phoenix'?"

"Yes."

"Then I suppose I'll call you Phoenix then. I'm Staff Lieutenant Naylor of the Alliance." Naylor heard no protest as he gave the name to the figure, nor noticing any reaction to revealing his serving with the Alliance, an enemy of Cerberus in every fashion. "Can you tell me more about the project? Did they say what its ultimate purpose was?"

"I cannot tell you its purpose, but I can tell you what they did to me." Phoenix turned around, facing Naylor again. The Lieutenant could not read the emotions of the person in front of him thanks to the gold helmet, but he could get enough from the way that Phoenix's voice came through the vocal emitters on the front of the helmet. "I can vaguely remember that I was a biotic before I was taken by them, but I never wanted to be a biotic, or one of their operatives. They, though, decided that I was going to be both, and I couldn't argue. A lot of what they did I do not fully understand, but they made it so that my biotics can be channelled into these whip things that the asari took from me. They also stuck this thing into my head, a thing that make me feel powerful every time I even think about my biotics. It is at the base of my spine, metal, electric and cold, but it can feel good sometimes."

"That is a biotic implant. It allows you to manifest biotics in a far more powerful and focussed fashion. But I have never heard of these whips. What do they do?"

"I do not know, but they can store an immense amount of energy." Phoenix slowly sat back down on the bunk that he had previously been relaxing on, leaning back against the wall it was bolted onto and tilting his head towards the ceiling. "I can also flash across an area and cause people to disintegrate. I learnt those when I was woken up after they cut open my body and stuck all of the metal things inside my brain and my muscles." He began to shudder slightly, Naylor subconsciously stepping forward but stopping before he entered into the stasis field. "They called my abilities 'good' when they restrained me after I killed the first of the doctors. I do not think I am good in any way."

"Phoenix, I'm sorry for what has happened to you, but–"

"Spare me your pity. I do not deserve it."

"Fine. I would like to offer to take you out of here, to somewhere where we can help you out." Naylor held his breath as he waited for a reaction from Arteri or Liara, both of whom were listening from the entrance to the cell complex. He hoped that they wouldn't raise objection, as keeping Phoenix in the prison on the asari ship, or as a prisoner of the asari on the Citadel or on an asari world would not be a valid option to trying to know more about him. "Would that be fine by you?"

"Maybe. Where would you take me to?"

"I am not certain yet, but there are plenty of people that could see use for your talents as a biotic."

"And what about the asari outside? Would they object?" Naylor didn't answer the question, instead looking towards the corner where the small hidden camera was hidden and raising an eyebrow. He knew where it was thanks to the feed he had glimpsed earlier at Huntress Imani's station, and he hoped that the simple gesture would be enough to prompt Captain Arteri to respond to his idea.

"_I think that it would be a good idea, Lieutenant Naylor. He is better suited in the care of a human than an asari, especially when my ship's only spare spaces are here in the brig."_

"_I agree, Peter. I will ask Shepard, see what she thinks of him. But I fear that they may have forced him through indoctrination, however small or rushed."_

"Perhaps Javik could shed some light on the situation?"

"_That is a possibility. I will get on to Shepard now, see what she thinks."_

"_Lieutenant, you are free to escort the prison- Phoenix from his cell to the guard station. We wil__l attach biotic dampeners to him until you can determine whether he is indoctrinated, just as a precaution. Is that alright, Phoenix?" _Phoenix turned his head and nodded towards the camera, following Naylor's line of sight to where the camera was hidden in the corner of the room. The stasis field shut down as he accepted the terms of his release from the brig, allowing the ex-Cerberus captive a chance to stand up and move without the restraints of the biotic field. Naylor motioned to the exit, following behind Phoenix as he walked down the corridor towards the exit to the facility. Liara switched off the interface on her omni-tool, having finished talking to Shepard about what to do with Phoenix and turning her attention towards him. Arteri looked at him with suspicion, rightly so given that he had attacked two of her commandos before the captain herself had frozen him in place with a powerful stasis field.

"You must be Phoenix. My name is Doctor Liara T'Soni, I work alongside Lieutenant Naylor here." Phoenix tilted his head slightly as he listened to the asari, studying her beneath his own helmet. He didn't trust her, but if she served with Naylor, who he was more inclined to trust, being human. He forced out a rather rushed "Hello, Doctor" before lapsing into silence, mindful of the watching eyes of the other two asari within the room.

"Liara, what did Shepard say with regards to Phoenix here?"

"She believes that letting Javik do a reading of DNA could learn us more about Phoenix – where he's from and importantly whether he's indoctrinated. The latter we need to know, but I think that we should respect his privacy with regards to the first, unless he doesn't mind relating the story, of course."

"Sounds fine by me, Liara. Captain, do you have the whips available?" Arteri nodded, and without a further command Imani walked towards a supply crate and retrieved the whips from the sealed container. The whips looked like they were made of a plastic material, but it was nothing like Naylor had seen before. They were fully flexible, able to contract back into the harness that attached them to Phoenix's armour and extend out into their normal form at just a small biotic pulse, and were lined with dark energy conductors. The whips were a fearsome looking weapon, and in the right hands would be a powerful addition to any biotic's arsenal.

"We've tried experimenting with getting them to work on some of our more experienced commandos, but we believe they require a further connection to the armour that Phoenix wears to operate correctly. Seeing as we have no need for them, and Phoenix seems to trust you, I say take them." Liara took the whips, looking over them in her hands before nodding her thanks.

"Well, in that case, then. Captain Arteri, it has been a pleasure to meet you. We will escort Phoenix here back to the Normandy, see what we cannot learn about him from our resources there." Naylor gave a slight bow of the head towards the captain as thanks. Arteri returned the gesture, turning about and returning to the hangar bay behind her and leaving Phoenix, Naylor and Liara to make their own way out of the ship. With the cells in the brig now completely empty, Imani picked herself up from her station and decided to lead the trio back up and out onto Dock 422. As they walked from the elevator and out into the CIC, Imani held them up as the commandos that had been preparing outside were marching through the airlock and into the belly of the ship. Arteri counted all sixty of her commandos into the transport, waiting for them to progress to their assigned quarters before letting Naylor, Phoenix and Liara exit the airlock and back onto Dock 422, Imani hovering beside the Captain's shoulder.

"Hey, Lieutenant!" Arteri called from behind them as they walked off of the boarding ramp out to the dock and towards the elevator. Naylor turned around as Liara and Phoenix continued on. "Good luck to you out there."

"The same to you, Captain." Naylor saluted as the boarding ramp to the transport detached from the ship, angling up and away from the airlock as warning sirens blaring as the transport's thrusters began spooling up for its next flight into the Terminus Systems. Liara, Phoenix and Naylor watched on as the vessel shot away from the docks on the Citadel, aiming straight towards the mass relay to the Eagle Nebula, and then onwards to their destination, Sigurd's Cradle.

Liara called the elevator down to the C-Sec academy up to the dock, turning to look towards Naylor as she waited. "I hope they come out of this operation without casualties. In these desperate times, soldiers are as valuable as food and water."

"I can't help but agree. We need everyone we can get."

* * *

**A/N: **Phoenix will be having a bit of a weird role in the story for the next few chapters, but he's quite a cool character to write with.

I kind of feel like the story's suffering from a lack of proper planning on my part. I've been writing chapters based on what I feel confident writing about, and I feel like the story, aside from the normal Mass Effect storyline, has a lack of a plot outside of that. Let me know what you think (whether I should try writing an overall plot, what you think of the story in general, any other suggestions, etc.), but I'm going to continue posting as I go along.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: **I had planned to put this re-edited chapter up on Sunday, but I forgot that, when you do a camp with five marquees, two tonnes of electrical equipment and a massive stage on the site of a primary school, you have to take it all down again. And then there was a barbecue afterwards, but I wasn't complaining! Instead, I'm putting this up on Monday, when my energy levels are severely depleted and the adrenaline has stopped flowing through my veins.

If you've already read the original version of Chapter 11, this little bit of the note is for you - the only thing that has changed is that Shepard wants Phoenix to help out off the Normandy rather than onboard the vessel. Following a bit of a discussion with Theodur, I kind of agree how the story's becoming a tale of original characters. Besides, it also gives me a bit more of a chance to stretch Naylor's endurance to the brink at the same time as Shepard's endurance gets pulled to unimaginable lengths. But that's all to do with the later parts of the story...

* * *

**Day Thirty Seven. Citadel station, Serpent Nebula**

"Phoenix, meet Commander Shepard. Commander Shepard, meet Phoenix, former Cerberus operative and biotic vanguard." Shepard extended her hand which Phoenix took in a hesitant grip. Naylor and Liara had found out on the journey back from Dock 422 to D42 that Phoenix had been bombarded with mountains of propaganda, blasting the Alliance, the Council and Shepard, and both of them had shared looks of fear in case he was to attack the commander when they met outside the Normandy's airlock. However, the operative had told them that he had barely paid attention to the propaganda, instead wishing to make his own decisions about the galaxy and the powers that be.

"It's good to meet you Phoenix."

"And you, Commander."

"Shepard, we'd like to give Javik a chance to investigate whether Phoenix here is free of indoctrination." Liara planned to give the operative a chance to assist the Alliance against Cerberus by instructing Alliance marines in how to deal with the incredibly deadly, Reaper-enhanced Cerberus operatives. However, Shepard believed that she had a far more appropriate job that Phoenix could do.

"That should be doable." Shepard led the group through the airlock, the Spectre warning EDI of Phoenix's entrance before the AI reported that Cerberus forces had boarded the ship. "Just make sure that Javik doesn't obliterate him on sight for being a Cerberus operative. I think I may have an idea for what Phoenix here can do for the war effort."

"And that would be, commander?"

"I want Phoenix helping the Alliance and Council. The knowledge he could give on Cerberus' operations could be very useful, and we can, with a bit of work with some scientists, we can analyse his weapons and equipment and pass the information onto the front lines."

"I was hoping that we could keep him on the Normandy, Shepard. Phoenix's equipment is of an incredibly high quality, and his abilities have the potential to rival those of experienced asari and human biotics, just thanks to what Cerberus has done. As well, his equipment could very well allow us to get access to Cerberus databases by tricking our way in via his armour's identifiers."

"Well, we already have a very wide range of specialists onboard at the moment, so I don't see how Phoenix would put in, and any hidden runtimes in his armour's and equipment's systems could prove costly if he interfaces with the ship. Cerberus could have planned for this to happen, however unlikely it is – the Illusive Man is a canny bastard. And EDI could do the same as Phoenix in the same way. On my side, we can get Phoenix's equipment reverse engineered on the Citadel or Thessia with our own technology, then deployed to front line biotic units, and we now have access to Cerberus' equipment, so we can develop jamming technology for radios and tech."

"Plus, Liara, keeping Phoenix onboard a ship where everyone will distrust him instinctively will not work, especially how Javik reacts to indoctrinated personnel. Shepard's right – Phoenix shouldn't be on the Normandy. He's far more useful elsewhere."

"What? We were discussing my idea a few minutes ago. You were supporting me then!"

"Well, she did have a convincing argument, and she's a Spectre."

"But–"

"_Spectre._ I'm not arguing with that!" Liara made to protest but backed down, not noticing the slight smirk from Shepard as she angrily passed through the CIC and into the elevator, Phoenix following behind her when Shepard gave him an instruction to settle in on the Crew Deck. "I swear we almost sounded like a married couple."

"You read my mind, Naylor. I mean, you two couldn't sound anything further from husband and wife at that point." The pair followed in Liara's footsteps, Shepard turning quickly as they passed her terminal to check her inbox and issue a general recall for the crew to begin heading back to the Normandy. Mordin's work was running behind the incredibly tight schedule that Shepard was wanting, but matters out of the Spectre's hands were forcing the Normandy to leave the Citadel without him. "We are damn sure that the Petra Nebula is going to be hit by the Reapers in a matter of hours, and Alliance Command wants us to be on station in case of any attacks that we can deal with given the resources that we have at the moment."

"Commander, us being on station will mean us being either _in_ the Petra Nebula or in the Exodus Cluster, both of which the Reapers are currently attacking or going to be attacking. Isn't that a bit risky, given how we have the person who's pissed the Reapers off the most onboard?"

"We're a stealth frigate, Lieutenant!"

"I know, I know, it was just a pathetic joke. How long from when we launch will we reach the Petra Nebula?"

"About eight or nine hours travel time, give or take a bit. We have jumps from the Serpent Nebula to the Annos Basin and then on to the Horse Head Nebula. When we reach the Horse Head, as much as I hate it, we then need to refuel over Noveria, and then make relay jumps to the Exodus Cluster and then to the Petra Nebula. So, in total, I would say about ten hours tops."

"Sounds good. I'll head down to the Crew Deck, grab some rack time and have my marines ready as soon as we arrive in Petra." Naylor turned from where he was standing towards the elevator, cueing the car to take him to the Crew Deck where he would be able to get some decent sleep in the Crew Quarters. As the doors rumbled to a close, Traynor dashed from her station and slid sideways through the metal doors. Naylor threw his hand onto the edge of the nearest door, allowing Traynor the chance to get through without her trailing leg being crushed by the force of the moving metal.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." Traynor took a few deep breaths as the elevator began moving down towards the Crew Deck.

"No worries, Traynor. Did you, uh, fancy having a leg crushed or chopped off or something?"

"Ha!" Traynor's laugh echoed throughout the elevator, slightly painful against Naylor's ears. "I don't think losing a leg is that preferable, but to answer your question – no. I was wanting to examine a few of EDI's logs from when the Normandy was a Cerberus ship, purely on a hunch and hopefully nothing serious. I've been picking up an interesting communications signal from inside the Petra Nebula and I want to check it out."

"Interesting as in interesting or interesting as in dangerous?"

"Hopefully neither, but then I swear the universe is against me at some times." The doors opened onto the Crew Deck, Naylor letting Traynor out and watching her run towards the Medbay and the Ai Core behind it. The Lieutenant followed a few seconds later, turning right and heading into the Crew Quarters, empty bar a few crewmembers getting what rest they could before they began their shifts, running the Normandy while moving from the Citadel to the Petra Nebula. Taking one of the many empty bunks, Naylor set an omni-tool alarm and dropped off to sleep, planning to wake up an hour before the Normandy earliest time that Shepard believed that the Normandy would have reached its destination by and prepare for whatever lay in store during the days ahead.

Liara had made sure Phoenix was settled into the Crew Quarters on Deck 3 before making a beeline for her own office. EDI's mobile platform, in the AI core to manually adjust some of the heat dispersion settings on her processor blocks, proved useful in guiding the former Cerberus operative around the Normandy, showing him the parts of the ship that he would need to get used to – the armoury, crew deck and the bridge, where Joker tried, rather in vain, to make him feel welcome aboard the ship. Liara had told EDI to let her know when the tour was completed, when she planned to abandon whatever work she was doing and take the operative down to Javik's lair in Engineering.

But when Liara turned her attention to the terminal in front of her, she wasn't able to concentrate on the work that was sitting right in front of her. The day's events were ingrained in the forefront of her mind, and every time she tried to focus on the computer in front of her, her attention was pulled back to the conversation with her father at the bar of Apollo's Café on the Presidium, now quickly receding as the Normandy sped away from the Citadel and towards the mass relay connecting the Widow system to the Annos Basin. Despite everything that had been said, Liara had loved the chance to talk with Aethyta. To talk to the older asari had been an opportunity that Liara had craved since the first time Benezia had mentioned the species of Liara's parent. And now that she had met her father, she could put that particular chapter of her life's story behind her.

EDI had yet to report back to Liara, and the asari was still unable to work on the Broker's network, her head still too distracted to properly concentrate on the time consuming and mentally tasking broker network. Instead she turned her attention to something she once loved – the protheans. In her past, if anyone had said that her studies on the extinct species would take a back seat to any other form of work, she would have laughed them into the middle of Styx Theta. But, only three years since the biggest discovery of her life – the cause of the prothean extinction itself – Liara's love for her doctoral subject was waning on an almost daily basis, and the asari was in no way concerned about it. Her life as the Shadow Broker was almost all consuming, and the few cursory glances she gave to her old self were purely for the purpose of seeing the translation of the Crucible's designs completed.

Despite this, while travelling between systems a few weeks before, Liara had spent a short while in Javik's thoroughly unsatisfactory company, pressing the last surviving Prothean for whatever he knew on the extinction of the Protheans and what they were like in the time before the arrival of the Reapers. What she had learnt after Javik had progressed on from talking about the Reapers would make for pretty poor reading, were she to publish any of it, and the opinions that she had made of the Protheans from her own individual work had been shattered very quickly. What had once seemed a race similar to the asari – diplomatic, enlightening and peaceful – had turned into a race of imperialists, greeting every other race they came across with the threat of "join us or die". They had risen to dominate the galaxy, uniting it through force and threats rather than alliances and treaties. And she was certain that, as much as Javik valued Shepard's dedication to trying to win the war, he would sacrifice all of the Normandy's crew to at least try and bring back the Prothean race, however slim the odds of success.

"Goddess, how was I so naïve? Did I really romanticize the Protheans because of how the galaxy's species were dazzled by the technology they left behind?" She stared at her old papers, all written before meeting Javik in the same fashion – they felt so childish, so ignorant of the truth, but reading them planted a small glimmer of hope for the archaeologist still working away inside her. "No, no, no, I can't be like this. I can't abandon what has been my entire life up until two years ago. No, I've been judging an entire species based on the small conversations I've had with one single soldier, and what they call an avatar of _vengeance_ at that."

"Doctor T'Soni, the AI known as EDI has just arrived outside the door and is passing on a message to you. She understands that you wish to take Cerberus operative Phoenix to see the prothean."

"Glyph, please amend your file on Phoenix – he is a former Cerberus operative, and I see it as a disfavour to still call him that."

"Of course, doctor."

"Glyph, please route any top priority emergencies to my omni-tool. I'm going to go and see Javik."

Javik's lair was a glum and gloomy part to the ship, formerly the Normandy's starboard cargo hold. Liara had used her old research to make the room far more suitable for the prothean to live in. There were none of the normal provisions for humans or asari (Protheans supposedly used techniques to similar to the kind of meditation asari justicars practiced rather than sleeping), and the room was humid with a pair of water pools at the far end. As a final provision, Liara had set up one of her spare terminal screens for the prothean to use. On the occasions when she had ventured down to the cargo hold, Javik had always been looking over the Reapers, trying to find weaknesses in their soldiers, and Shepard had once had a conversation about the first Normandy and the times when the SR-2 was a Cerberus vessel.

Phoenix was cautious when Liara led him out from the elevator onto the Engineering deck and towards Javik's room, trying not to let his fear show on his face now that he had left his helmet back in the crew quarters. He had been told by the mech, EDI, that the prothean barely talked to anyone aside from Shepard and occasionally Liara, and that Javik hated the sight of any Cerberus soldier. Following that particular morsel of information, Phoenix felt incredibly self conscious with the diamond shaped logo emblazoned on his chest. Liara had assured him that he would be fine, and as a precaution he had activated his armour's built-in shields. He tried boosting his confidence, repeating one of the mantras he had been taught while on Virmire.

"Biotics cannot work against kinetic barriers. Biotics cannot work against kinetic barriers."

"Pardon?"

"Biotics cannot work against– oh, sorry. I was, uh, just talking to myself." The asari smiled as she looked back over her shoulder, opening the door to the prothean's room with a wave of her orange-glowing arm. Phoenix felt like withdrawing into himself every time he was near the asari, still unused to talking to anyone who didn't look like he did. The first time he had seen an asari, seen an alien in fact, was barely days earlier on Virmire, and on that occasion he had instinctively tried to biotically swat them away before being frozen in place by another asari's biotics. And while on the ship, and while he was on the ship, the blue and black asari, Arteri, had tried questioning him while travelling back to the place they called the Citadel. On that second occasion, he had tried to ignore the asari for as long as he could, only saved by the arrival of the human lieutenant he had followed back to the Normandy.

Walking into the cargo hold, Phoenix flinched as Javik turned around. His heart jumped as he saw the prothean's four eyes focus on the symbol on his chest. And as the prothean made towards the green rifle sitting on a table beside him, Phoenix very nearly ran, held back only by Liara's reassuring hand. This new alien was very, very different to the human-looking asari, and as soon as he entered the room, he was scared.

"Asari, what is the meaning of this?"

"Javik, this is-"

"A Cerberus operative. You brought to me someone who is indoctrinated. Do you wish to clean up the mess once I have finished dealing with him?"

"No. Javik, this is Phoenix, a _former_ Cerberus operative. We wish to know _whether_ he has undergone the indoctrination that other Cerberus operatives have."

"There is no need. If he was indoctrinated by Cerberus, I will kill him. If he is not, he is a Cerberus operative – I will kill him myself. Anyone who is indoctrinated deserves death." As they argued, neither of them noticed how Phoenix flinched every time the name 'Cerberus' was mentioned.

"Javik, he is no Cerberus operative. He was found on a Cerberus base, yes, in Cerberus equipment, but he assures us that he is not a part of that organisation. Isn't that right Phoenix? Phoenix?" Liara looked around for the human, but she couldn't see him. The presence of the young man was only given away by the flash of silver as a beam of light caught on his armour. "Phoenix, are you okay?"

"No." His voice was weak, barely audible over the hum resounding through the walls from the nearby drive core. "I'm just not comfortable around the… around Javik."

"Oh, I see. Perhaps this would be better to be over as quickly as possible. Phoenix, Javik is going to read your DNA to deduce whether you went through the first stages of indoctrination while you were being held by Cerberus. It shouldn't hurt, but-" Javik ignored the asari, instead gripping the sides of Phoenix's forehead and initiating the reading of his DNA, without caring for the young human's welfare as he did so. Liara gasped and watched in horror as the human violently shook briefly before the prothean let go of him, slumping unconsciously to the floor in pain. Liara checked his pulse, thankful when the dull and repetitive thud of the human heartbeat could be felt beneath her fingers. "Javik, what happened?"

"I do not think I need to explain, asari. He is a Cerberus-"

"HE. IS. NOT. CERBERUS!" Liara lit up like a Christmas tree, flaring her biotics as she let her built-up anger towards the prothean explode. "How many times do I have to explain? He is not a Cerberus operative! He was taken by them against his will. He hates them!"

"He does."

"What?"

"He hates Cerberus for what they did to him. The enhancements they made were brutal, done while he was restrained to a table and still conscious."

"But is he indoctrinated?"

"No." Liara let out a small breath, thankful that the young man wasn't a slave, however much, to the Illusive Man's cause. Indicating to Javik to continue, the prothean began explaining what else he had read about Phoenix's history while the asari made the young human as comfortable as possible in the cargo hold until he regained consciousness. "He was taken by Cerberus from the streets of Benning…"

**Day Thirty Eight. SSV Normandy, en route to the Petra Nebula**

Naylor's omni-tool began vibrating vigorously on his left wrist, the lieutenant swatting at it like it was a fly buzzing around his person. Forcing himself up and out of the bottom bunk he had been occupying for the past eight hours, the Lieutenant quickly grabbed his second set of off-mission clothes and dived out of the Crew Quarters and across the corridor into the men's shower room. Quickly waking himself up with a blast of barely-heated water, he managed to finish before the horde of Alliance crewmembers descended on the showers as they were woken up at the latest possible moment for their shift. The lieutenant quickly moved out of the way and into the mess hall, collecting a 'breakfast' from the ship's mess hall. The Normandy had picked up some more palatable rations from the Citadel during the period that it had been docked, and Naylor was thankful as he received a meal that looked like it had a proper taste to it. The ship's new Mess Sergeant, Fraser, had worked a wonder on the normal MRE rations with a small amount of spices that Shepard had picked up for him, doing what the poorest of the Citadel's inhabitants favoured and simply spicing up what was bland and tasteless. It made for a good change, at least compared to cardboard.

Liara had also woken up early and was making an inroad into the asari-focussed rations that Shepard had been able to acquire for her, delighted at the taste and thankful that the meal, extremely high in calories, meant that she wouldn't have to have extra portions of the normal meals on the ship to meet her recommended allowances for being a biotic. Naylor saw her at one of the tables and sat down across from her, the few other crewmen at the table acknowledging him with a cursory nod of the head and grunts through mouthfuls of food. Liara looked up, still managing to smile despite a mouthful of food.

"Doc, hey I'm sorry for joking around yesterday with what Shepard said about Phoenix and-"

"You do not need to apologise, Peter. I'm just not good with humour, and I'm sure sometimes that I must seem really dense to you."

"Nah, you're alright. I meant to ask, what did Javik find out about Phoenix from that DNA reading thing he can do?" Though Shepard obviously wanted to keep the existence of the Prothean a secret, she had given out information to everyone on the Normandy so that they knew at least enough to guarantee a peaceful coexistence with Javik onboard. Only a few people ever went down into the starboard cargo hold where Javik resided, primarily Shepard and Liara but sometimes, when Javik was away on a mission, an engineer went into the room to perform maintenance and clean the space.

"Well, he's sure that Phoenix is not indoctrinated, and all the implants that he's had aren't having any form of effect on the normal processes in his brain."

"So he shouldn't turn on us the moment he comes within range of a Cerberus station or unit? That's great. Did Javik get anything else? What about his motives, beliefs, history?"

"He was born on Benning about fifteen years ago, but his parents abandoned him as a child aged only seven. He grew up on his own, fairly innocuous but when Benning was attacked by Cerberus, he was one of the civilians taken during the fighting."

"God, fifteen? He sounds like he's as old as I am!"

"Perhaps his years spent on the streets hardened him beyond his own years – he's spent half his life making his own way through life. On the subject of his motives, he does not share the same kind of xenophobia as other Cerberus soldiers and employees do, but he does have a lack of experience with the citadel races, so he is rather nervous with most of the ship." Liara quickly took a bite from her food, chewing and swallowing quickly before continuing her explanation. "Of course I find it strange that that is true in this day and age."

"Earth isn't really a tourist hotspot for other species around the galaxy. I didn't see an alien in person until I was sixteen, making a trip to Arcturus with the school I was a part of. Even then it was just an asari merchant visiting the seat of the Alliance."

"You first met an alien at sixteen? That does seem, for humans, to be a bit old."

"Remember that we're not exactly seen as the nice guys of the galaxy, Liara. There was considerable apprehension surrounding humanity when I grew up, barely twenty years after the First Contact War." And besides, I was only on Arcturus Station because I was schooled at an Alliance military academy in the British Isles." For Naylor, his memories of the trip were incredibly special, the highlight of his childhood especially given that in those days, Arcturus was a _very_ military-focussed place. Few civilians and even fewer children got to go there, so to be part of a group of thirty from a school of two thousand going on week-long trip meant that one was very lucky indeed.

"Oh, tell me this story then."

"We're getting off track, but fine. So the merchant, with a couple of commando bodyguards in tow, was making her way from the parliament chambers back to the docks, but she took a wrong turn. One thing leads to another, and she suddenly walks into me and four of my fellow students. Needless to say, we didn't really know what to do, just standing there and _staring_ at these asari, all completely alien to us!" Liara beamed a smile back, motioning with her fork to continue onwards.

"So you just stopped there and stared?"

"Yeah. So did the merchant, not expecting to see five students gawking at her and her commandos. As a part of our trip, though, we had been given some maps on our omni-tools to help us if we were lost and so I blurted out, rather quickly and in a broken and faltering asari dialect 'If you are lost, we can help.' And the look on her face was brilliant."

"You know how to speak Thessian Standard?"

"Well, sort of. I ended forgetting most of it when I got a translator implant after I joined the Alliance, but back then what I knew was only really enough to get me around or to the nearest speaker of English as quickly as possible." Naylor took a final bite of his own food, rather cold from having ignored it while speaking to Liara, before sliding it over the table to the side, where it would remain ignored while their conversation panned out. "She accepted our help, and about a quarter of an hour later we got to the docks and she thanked us with a few of the sweeter rations in her ship. The commandos also decided to take pictures of the lot of us on their omni-tools. Still have those particular photos."

"Well, that is quite surprising. So what, that makes two asari matriarchs, a merchant with enough pull to go to Arcturus and the asari councillor that you know? Were you an asari yourself, you'd have some serious leverage in the forums."

"Doubt it. I could only really say I know one matriarch and the councillor at all well, and even then I would say that the way that I know them, if you would call it that, is incredibly professional."

"I see. I guess the human saying 'I get the picture' would be appropriate here. So, going back to our new colleague, Javik tells me that Phoenix's speciality is in a branch of biotic techniques referred to by Cerberus as the 'Dragoon' sub-branch. One bit of the technology that Cerberus' Dragoons utilise is those biotic whips, but I've yet to work out a rough idea on how they work. Once Phoenix's equipment can be analysed properly, ideally on the Citadel or in labs on Thessia, we can begin to reverse engineer the designs. After that, I'm sure asari companies would pay with both credits and favours to have access to those kinds of designs."

"That sounds good. Have there been any changes with the situation in the Petra Nebula over the last eight hour shift?" Liara slid him a datapad that she had been reading from while eating her meal. It made for bad reading – the Reapers had flung a number of capital ships into the Petra Nebula and scattered the small forces assigned to defend the system around Elysium, and destroying the orbital defence platforms defending the scarred planet itself. "It doesn't really look good, does it?"

"No, no it doesn't." Liara's attention switched quickly from talking to Naylor as she saw Shepard arriving in the mess hall, the Spectre collecting a tray of bland food from the kitchen. She sat herself down beside Liara, barely nodding to both of them as they sat at their table. The Spectre eat quickly, not talking to the others at her table and barely acknowledging anyone who greeted her with a salute or a brief 'morning'. "Shepard, is something wrong?"

"Everything's wrong around the entire galaxy, Liara. But we're looking at an absolute shit storm over Elysium. The Turians were hit damn hard over Taetrus, now the Reapers are doing the same to us."

"They're hitting Elysium because of everything that happened there between us and the batarians."

"Yeah. It feels to me like they're going all berzerker on the system because it's where my story really began. Like this is all a way of sticking the middle finger up in my direction." Naylor nodded in response, letting the Spectre turn back to her meal. Shepard, however, was finished with her half-eaten meal, pushing it away and leaving for the elevator. She called back for Naylor and Liara to follow her, the pair abandoning the remnants of their meals and dumping their trays in the automated cleaner before following. The mood in the elevator was quiet, Shepard simply tapping away in a corner with her omni-tool while Naylor leant against the railing at the side. A long and painfully quiet few moments later, the trio exited the elevator, and were walking around past the massive holographic projector in the CIC towards the bridge when Traynor ambushed the trio of them as they passed her terminal. "Commander, can I speak to you for a moment?"

"Of course, Traynor. I've never had a real chance to talk with you. How are you settling in?"

"I actually feel somewhat useful. It was really challenging integrating data feeds for the war summit, and I enjoyed it a lot." The specialist beamed with pride as she briefly recounted a few of the more interesting jobs that comprised her role on the Normandy. While she was sure that Shepard appreciated her keeping the Spectre up to date with messages and important information relayed to her via the normal communication channels, she knew that it wasn't as impressive to Naylor and Liara as the less common work she was doing for the technicians in the War Room. "I am glad that we were able to perform stress tests during the previous deployment to Tuchanka, however. Our systems are holding up, but it may become a strain if we don't get a proper maintenance in drydock."

_"Specialist Traynor has been extremely helpful. The accuracy of the data that we have available in the War Room is a direct result of her work."_

"Thank you, EDI. I'm still getting used to everything. In the lab, we would hoard everything we could, with piles of tech everywhere."

"Reminds me of Project Arvana on Thessia – even though we had a budget running into the millions, it always seemed to run out whenever we really needed it, so we would make massive piles of Bluewire, Prodigy and Savant omni-tools when we got money into the coffers and literally burn our way through them. Makes a change from out here, which I imagine must be like living out of a shoebox in comparison."

"Naylor is right, Traynor. Life on an active ship always feels crowded at first, Traynor. Liara here found it difficult to live on the first Normandy for a good while after she arrived after Therum." The asari nodded in reply, Traynor's attention flicking straight back to Shepard as the Spectre continued. "You'll get used to it."

"Oh, it's not a bad thing. I've got no problems with getting cosy." Traynor leaned back against the edge of the immense holographic projector displaying the galaxy map, crossing her arms across her stomach. "This has all been great. Back in the lab we hoarded tech because we had no budget, but now… EDI, Ariake Tech uses a proprietary smart processing algorithm that could clean up our long range data processing. Can we use it?"

_"Yes. Analysing and applying the upgrade now." _Naylor smirked as he understood the fun that Traynor had when given access to an entire galaxy's worth of freely available technology. It had been different with his experience on project Arvana, but they had a significantly bigger budget than the Alliance R&D departments on Earth and Arcturus Station had, and the team on the project had had access to many of the benefits that Traynor was exercising on the Normandy._ "The algorithm should reduce long range strategic combat data analysis time by three percent."_

"I'm impressed, Traynor."

"Thank you, commander. If it means getting the equipment I need, I'm quite happy living in a shoebox." Shepard turned to continue her journey back to the bridge, wanting to check on the progress of the trip and afterwards the situation on Elysium, but Traynor intercepted her as she began walking. "While you're here, commander, I found something while scanning the major communication channels."

"Was this the interesting thing you were talking about yesterday?"

"Yes it was, Lieutenant. Grissom Academy is requesting help. As they're near to Elysium, they will very soon be feeling the brunt of the Reaper advance into the Petra Nebula." Traynor motioned for Shepard to come back to her terminal; where she had been working on the signal she had received that had piqued her interest. "Personally, I thought the war would force the closure of most schools, but Grissom Academy is incredibly specialised. Its home to some of the smartest students that humanity has to offer and the Ascension project is the best training facility in the galaxy for human biotics. You would have been sent there were you ten years younger or so."

"Yeah, I remember the place. I sent a young man named David Archer to the academy, but he was a savant. I'm also surprised they're still open too."

"A lot of their work has Alliance support and funding. That might be why they stayed. Anyway, a turian transport in the region responded to distress calls from the Academy, so normally I would say that we don't need to do anything."

"I get the feeling that there's going to be a 'but?' very soon." Naylor's comment was not planned to provoke any kind of response other than a slight laugh, but Traynor, following a slight laugh, jumped into the next part of her explanation to the commander at that moment.

"You're too right, Lieutenant. Something was off when I analysed the turian signal and applied the deciphering algorithm that Primarch Victus was kind enough to upload to EDI's systems, and I had EDI do some analysis. It's fake."

"That is not good at all. It's very worrying indeed."

"EDI had a hunch that it was Cerberus. I took a look through her logs – that was what I was doing last night, Lieutenant – and the discrepancies match one that lured the Normandy to a disabled Collector ship."

Shepard sighed, remembering the time that her incredibly small faith in the Illusive Man had been eroded completely by his trickery. "Ah, yes. That's a long story."

"In any event, whoever faked the signal wants us to think that Grissom Academy is being evacuated." Traynor sighed, relaxing after having finally gotten the information that had been plaguing her since the Normandy had left the Citadel off her chest. "I believe that they're still in danger."

"Good catch, specialist! Maybe you do belong in a shoebox after all."

Traynor smiled, before turning her back to the terminal she was working on. "If this really is Cerberus, then this was worth spending the last nine hours investigating. It could be simple disinformation, but-"

"I doubt that it is, Traynor. Liara and I came up with a hypothesis given what we know about Phoenix and why Cerberus captured him, and it matches this incredibly closely."

"And that was?"

"That Cerberus is interested in biotics, Commander. We've seen them both getting naturally powerful biotics on their side, however willingly, and augmenting the biotics of those that have less powerful abilities."

"That sounds solid to me Naylor. Especially given their work with Jack, a super biotic they brutally created on Pragia that I had in my team when we took on the Collectors. If Cerberus are attacking Grissom Academy, they could well be after the biotics there, as well as any of the other students. Hell of a good catch there Traynor. We'll adjust course and head for Grissom Academy as soon as we arrive in the Petra Nebula." Shepard turned from Traynor's station, walking quickly towards the bridge to speak with Joker, the Normandy's pilot. Naylor and Liara followed, called by the commander to join her on the bridge. "Naylor, I want all twelve of your marines good to go as a second team. Get the second shuttle we picked up on the Citadel good to go, and have the new pilot, Khan, start his pre-flight preparations as soon as he's down on the hangar deck."

"On it, Commander." Naylor turned to begin making his way down to the hangar bay, but a shake of the head from Shepard stopped him in his tracks.

"Liara, I know that I've said that I don't like bringing you on any mission but I'll need your expertise on biotics to help the students. You have proper combat armour, correct?" Shepard was referring to an alternative to the attire the asari was wearing, the thought out blend of light armour and casual clothing that had been her staple uniform since joining the Normandy, and even before during her time on Mars. However good the armour was, it was a poor substitute for proper armour when in a protracted fire fight, and as such Liara had seen it fit to acquire an asari-specific set of what the Alliance called SCA, or Standard Combat Armour. However, it had sat in her office since she had acquired it before Menae, and dust was already accumulating on its as-of-yet unmarred white surface. She had bought the armour with assurances from the seller, the Armali Council, that it would fit perfectly without needing to adjust it, but there had never been a chance to try it out before the Normandy was flying away to Palaven.

"I have a set, Commander, but I haven't had a chance to check whether it fits correctly."

"I would say check with Vega, but I need him getting himself ready. Naylor, could you spare a marine to check Liara's equipment before she deploys?"

"Sure. If you bring it down to the hangar bay, I'll have Roberts check it out, make any adjustments she thinks you'll need." Liara nodded, turning from the passageway to the bridge. "Any more orders for me, Commander?"

"Not yet. Head down to the hangar bay and get yourself ready. Odds are that the plan will involve your team securing an exit route from the station, but hopefully things won't come to that. That's all." Naylor saluted, turning back into the CIC to begin moving down to the hangar bay. In thirty days of fighting, this was barely his third combat mission on the Normandy. And while he knew combat was always a danger, he was ready and raring to go.

* * *

**A/N: **Next chapter (Chapter 12) should be up on Friday, unless the post-heatwave thunderstorms _don't_ abate, at which point it will probably be going up on Thursday. Chapter 12 was _technically_ supposed to be going up with this update, but my laptop, an old, screen-flickering thing that desperately needs replacing, decided to not properly save the .odt file I had the finalised version of the chapter stored on (guess the picture of what happened when I found out...). Rest assured, the story's master file did save properly, so things aren't all that bad. I think...


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: **The heat did let up a bit. Enough to at least get this out before I slow roast myself to death...

Mass Effect 3's multiplayer (the main inspiration for Naylor's team of marines) is a great part to the game, but I honestly find it a bit ridiculous. Yes, it is multiplayer, so it's not exactly canonical compared to the singleplayer, but when you used to get community-wide weekend missions where the secondary objective was to kill 200,000 banshees or something, I can't help but think "Are there 200,000 banshees in the universe?" I mean, yeah Lessus included there's probably more than one Ardat-Yakshi monastery in the galaxy, but I doubt that there are enough Ardat-Yakshi in the galaxy to warrant the number you end up seeing in a normal Gold difficulty match. Sitting here and uploading this chapter, my roommate's playing a gold match (as an asari huntress who isn't even set up to do biotics properly…) and it's just banshee wail after banshee wail. Yes, it's more of a challenge than a million weak husks but it's just ridiculous. Of course, the Americans he's playing with simply get around it with the stupid missile launcher glitch. Cheats…

It's time for a couple of chapters of Grissom Academy-related fun. I'm no fan of writing entire combat missions (like I actually hate writing them with a passion), but this is a story based off of a role-playing third person shooter - you can't avoid them! So, I hope this ends up cutting the mustard...

* * *

**Day Thirty Seven. Grissom Academy, Petra Nebula**

"Alright, listen up!" Shepard stood in the middle of a circle of marines and fellow soldiers, surrounded by the holographic image of the Jon Grissom Academy. Those around her were all waiting for the briefing to finish and give them the chance to don their armour before the deployment. "Effectively, Cerberus is now in control of the station, and there will be no Alliance reinforcements to secure the station once we've finished our extraction of the students of the Ascension Project and the engineers and techs remaining at the Academy. Either every Cerberus soldier on that station needs to die or we extract every non-Cerberus person off of the station. Is that clear?"

A chorus of "aye, ayes" flew round the group, silenced by Shepard raising her hand.

"Cerberus' forces are not the only people on the station, so watch your fires. Students' uniforms are based off of Alliance off-duty uniforms, coloured dark red with differing trim colours based on what project or department the students are from. Alliance security personnel are either uniformed in dark blue off-duty uniforms or wearing dark-blue armour. Cerberus, as you all know, are armoured in white – shoot them.

"Our objective is to extract any soldiers or students from the station. My team, in Cortez's shuttle, will try to locate and collect as many of the students as we can and get them to a rally point. Our infiltration point is an external airlock on the Ascension Wing."

"Where will the rally point be?"

"We'll get to that when we get to that. Naylor's team will deploy to the station's hangar and secure our extraction route, as well as preventing Cerberus from deploying reinforcements to support their forces currently on the station. Lieutenant, as well as holding the hangar, I want you to clear out the adjacent cargo storage areas to the hangar bay and lock the cargo tunnels down. If Cerberus gain or continue to have access to those, they'll be able to send soldiers all over the station at will."

"On it."

"If at any point the Reapers start to move towards the station with the obvious intent to destroy it, we are to extract immediately with no excuses on any parts. As such, depending on the number of students and staff members that we pick up, Naylor, you may have to secure a number of the Cerberus shuttles that they will have inevitably landed in the hangar. Pilot Khan will fly the second Alliance shuttle onto the station with Ores as co-pilot, but I want both of you securing and then flying shuttles off of the station. Clear?"

"Aye aye, Commander."

"Roughly how long will the mission last for if the Reapers don't intervene?"

"I don't know, Takeida, but it shouldn't be much longer than an hour." The sergeant nodded his understanding, and the commander, seeing no more questions to ask, began to finish up the briefing. "If that's all, everybody get armoured up and into the shuttles. We launch in five." The circle dismissed, everyone walked over to their assigned equipment lockers to don their armour. Shepard watched as Liara searched out Sergeant Roberts while carrying the case with her white combat armour inside. The sentinel began meticulously arranging the different plates of armour that made up the SCA set, highlighting to the asari the key parts to the armour that would need adjusting and running the omni-tool program to match the biotic amplifiers in the armour to the natural frequency of her own biotics. As the pair continued to work efficiently to fit the armour to the asari's undersuit, Shepard began pulling on the first of the many parts of her T-5V battlesuit. It would be a long morning.

* * *

Shepard ran up to the door to Naylor's shuttle, her appearance silencing the marines waiting inside. Naylor, clad in his black N7 Inferno armour and carrying his helmet beneath his shoulder, stood and walked over to where she was waiting with what he knew to be a vital message. "Lieutenant, we are a go. There's a Cerberus cruiser sitting near to the shuttle bay, but Joker will disable the vessel with our Thanix cannons before we start our engines."

"Then the Normandy distracts the fighters and we sneak in during the gap in the coverage. Any sign of Reaper activity close to this sector?"

"They're still concentrating on the defence grid over Elysium, but we predict we'll have three hours before they turn their attention to the Academy."

"The clock's ticking down from three hours, then. We're good to go here, Commander, on your signal." The Spectre turned around, sprinting back to her own shuttle, piloted by Cortez, and strapped herself into her flight seat. Naylor nodded at his squad to do the same, strapping themselves into the twelve flight seats in the passenger compartment of the Kodiak. Walking up towards the crew compartment, Naylor tapped the shoulder of Khan's co-pilot, Ores, giving him the signal to take off on the prearranged signal, before taking the last available seat in the passenger space himself. Shepard's team would be the hammer to Naylor's anvil, attacking Cerberus forces and forcing them back to where Naylor's team would entrench within the hangar bay.

"Gents, helmets on." The fourteen occupants of the shuttle donned their helmets and flight breathers for the cold launching of the shuttle. As the cold start required the shuttles to be drawing no power from their onboard generators and drive cores, the life support systems, usually drawing a huge amount of power, were disabled, and the control systems restricted until only the "engine start" function was available to the pilot. Once that was pressed, the shuttle would enter a normal flying mode and all control would be released back to the pilot.

A short moment passed before Naylor felt the lurch of gravity as the Kodiak left the Normandy's deck and accelerated forwards, accompanied soon by the momentary feeling of having his weight doubled as the mass effect fields used to simulate gravity by both the Normandy and the Kodiak overlapped. The rest of his team felt it too, but none of the twelve marines made any comment about it, the feeling being a second nature to them. The hum of the shuttle's engines cut out as the Kodiak exited the Normandy's hangar bay, the shuttle powering down and entering a cold start mode while the Normandy initiated the distraction. Naylor signalled his team to load thermal clips in the time, the Lieutenant himself preparing the M-96 he had 'requisitioned' from Cerberus forces on Mars and then checking and loading the N7-issue Eagle heavy pistol sitting on his waist. He had left his other two weapons behind on the Normandy – the two antiquated Russian-made Grachs would be a danger onboard the Academy, given how the rounds retained their shape on impact rather than squashing like the normal slugs fired by mass accelerator firearms, and thus could blow a hole through the exterior of the station if the shot was placed right.

The rest of his team also loaded their chosen weapons – M-8 Avenger assault rifles were the most common, carried by Roberts, Sara, Conway and Takeida, but there were two M-15 Vindicators, carried by his two infiltrators, Warwick and Anning, and a few shotguns carried by the two vanguards, Clarke and Symonds, as well as Sergeant Takeida. The two adepts in his team, Wallace and Cleveland, carried Shuriken submachine guns, while the squad's heavy weapons expert, Atkins, carried an M-76 Revenant, the heavy weapon acquired by Shepard during a raid on a Cerberus installation on Sanctum. Added to their weapons were bandoliers of grenades, pistols, and the variety of biotics and tech powers that individual members of the squad specialised in. In all, the team was a well balanced team, and had by now had seen a few missions to get used to fighting together – Naylor, Atkins, Cleveland and Symonds had fought alongside Shepard on Menae, while Roberts' team, of her, Clarke, Wallace and Warwick, and Takeida's team, made up of himself, Sara, Conway and Anning had seen action with the Commander while on Tuchanka. However, it was the first time that all twelve had fought as a single unit, and Naylor was as of yet uncertain with how the team could perform.

"_Normandy to Kodiaks, we are beginning our attack run on the cruiser now. Stand by."_

"_Copy Normandy."_

In the vacuum outside the shuttle, the Normandy cut through the void like a greyhound. Ahead of them was the Jon Grissom Academy, and sitting above it was a single Cerberus cruiser, flanked by a flight of six Trident fighters. Inside the CIC, gunnery officers relayed back and forth with the main battery, plotting a firing solution to destroy, or at least distract, the Cerberus forces guarding the Academy. Within a few seconds, their solution was in place, Joker guiding the Normandy along the flight path towards the cruiser and lining the bow up with their target. EDI initiated her cyber warfare suites, accessing the cruiser's kinetic barriers and silently disabling them, the crew in the ship unawares as to what was happening.

As the Normandy entered weapons range, Cortez and Khan powered their Kodiaks up, engines catapulting them forward towards the Academy, gaining speed all the while. Ahead of them, the Normandy locked the main Thanix cannon onto the cruiser, the first shot aimed at the ship's thrusters and the second, a few seconds later, targeting the cruiser's spinal cannon. At a prearranged point, the Normandy fired, the first shot scything through the void and slamming several kilograms of molten metal into the unprotected thrusters on the cruiser. The second shot cut a hole through the vessel's exterior armour and cut the main barrel in two. Disabled and helpless to damage the speeding Normandy, the cruiser was helpless as the Normandy sped past it, firing Javelin torpedoes into the weapons batteries along its flanks and annihilating the broadside mass accelerators and GARDIAN weapons that posed the only threat to the Kodiaks. The six fighters broke formation, jinking as they followed the frigate past the academy, but they were left far away from the station when the Normandy jumped to FTL.

The distraction working a treat, Naylor waited as Khan aimed the shuttle towards the hangar bay. Shepard's shuttle was already heading towards an unsecured airlock on the side of the station, flying quickly to find the one of the directors of the Ascension Project, Kahlee Sanders. As the Spectre and her team secured their entry point to the station, moving inside to find the students that Cerberus was hunting for, EDI and Sanders worked their way through the station's network, retaking the academy-wide communication network from Cerberus control and accessing the controls for the hangar bay doors. Khan slowed the shuttle's approach while the synthetic carefully opened the hangar bay doors for their transport to enter through. The pilot armed the shuttle's nose-mounted mass accelerator cannons, able to use them with impunity thanks to the mandated reinforced floor and walls of the hangar bay, the metal needed for any high-speed crashes or malfunctions. As the vessel passed into the station's gravitational envelope, Naylor raised himself from his flight seat as Khan dived the Kodiak through the opening hangar bay doors. Nodding to Clarke and Takeida, who were standing by the doors, the marines hit the door open switches on the holographic displays. Khan fired a few rounds from his weapons into the barricades set up by Cerberus in the hangar bay, the impacts sending everything nearby flying through the air, while Naylor signalled his team to drop. Each of the marines jumped from the moving vehicle and rolled their way out of the impact, the team disembarking in a reasonable time of ten seconds before moving into the space once inhabited by the outer Cerberus barricades.

"Takeida, move left with your team, cover the entrances to the cargo elevators. Roberts' team, my team, move up and secure the exit. As quick as you can, ladies!" Ahead of Naylor, the Cerberus troopers were rallying and regrouping, Centurions barking orders and throwing surviving assault troopers back into the front line. Bullets from both sides sliced through the artificial atmosphere, sparking off bulkheads and being slapped away by soldiers' kinetic barriers. Naylor signalled for Cleveland to move up to his position, pointing out a cluster of Assault Troopers holding a barricade by the exit of the hangar. The adept nodded, pulling the unfortunate troopers into the gravity well of a singularity, their helpless movement into the air allowing Naylor time to line up clean shots onto their helmets.

Steadying his breath, Naylor pulled the trigger for the first time, a first trooper flung back by the impact and slamming the trooper away and out of the singularity's area of effect. The lifeless body dropped to the floor like a stone, spinning slightly and landing with a crack that was audible over the din of combat. Naylor paid no attention to the first kill, moving the sights of his M-96 towards the second target before pulling the trigger again. The bullet slammed into the composite armour on the Trooper's shoulder, tearing a great hole in the plate but doing no damage to the trooper's body itself. A pair of shots followed, hitting the chest and neck, the trooper going limp in the gravity well of the singularity. Two more shots hit the third and final trooper before the singularity disappeared, Cleveland switching to hurl a shockwave at a Guardian trooper, the heavy shield carried being yanked off and pulling the hapless soldier into a bulkhead, caving his helmet in on him. The gunfire around the hangar died down, the last few Cerberus troopers either killed or pulling back into the depths of the station.

"Nice work with that singularity, Specialist."

"Thanks, LT."

"Roberts, scavenge thermal clips and grenades from the dead troopers and start pulling those barricades into defensive positions in the entrance hall beyond the hangar."

"_On it Lieutenant."_

"Takeida, check and clear the cargo halls, then disable the elevators when you return up to the hangar."

"_Copy Lieutenant. Hitting the cargo areas now."_

"Khan, land the Kodiak and prepare some of these Cerberus ships for launch. We don't know how many students we have to evacuate, so I want as many in the air as you can get."

"_Roger that. Setting down now."_ Naylor followed Symonds and Cleveland out the hangar bay, Atkins already setting his Revenant up in a small position created by a bench inside the entrance hall close to the door to the hangar. He had chosen it well, affording good lines of fire through the hall, broken only by the six supporting pillars and the large plinth and statue of Jon Grissom, dominating the centre of the hall.

"_Lieutenant, I have Commander Shepard on the comm. for you."_

"Patch her through, Ores."

"_Lieutenant, this is Shepard. Are you there?"_

"Aye, Commander. We are in possession of the hangar bay and the station's entrance hall. Takeida's squad is covering the cargo areas, but they may be on a wild goose chase."

"_I hear you. Keep your guard up, we've got Cerberus forces crawling over the area and you've just taken out their only way of getting back to wherever the Illusive Man is staying. Sanders has found a team of students holed up in the station's Orion Hall, and we're heading that way now. ETA to their location is about five minutes."_

"Got it. We'll continue to hold the hangar bay. Naylor out." Roberts and her team made their way into the entrance hall, pulling stacks of Cerberus' deployable barricades and power generators behind them, while Cleveland and Symonds began setting up traps, linking trip-lasers and motion mines up to flashbangs, lift grenades and inferno grenades. Atkins moved his Revenant to the first redoubt that Roberts' team had set up, overlooking the main entrance to the hall. "Roberts, can you and Warwick seal those doors on the upper level? Our flank is currently exposed, and Cerberus could gain access to here via that balcony."

Naylor was pointing to a balcony cutting through the entrance hall on the opposite side to the windows looking onto the hangar bay. The doors to the balcony were closed, but a decent hacker or some applied force could pull them open. Roberts took a look at the doors and nodded, waving Warwick over with a wave of her hand. The pair ran over and Roberts pulled herself up onto the balcony, turning around to haul the shorter Warwick up to the same level. The pair split up, each moving to one of the two doors and sealing the metal panels together with their omni-tools before remotely disabling the mechanisms within the doors. While they set about securing the flank, Naylor's team, Clarke and Wallace were continuing to fortify the entrance hall. The latter two were finishing their job of setting up the Cerberus barricades around the door to the hangar, attaching the heavy cables to the generators that would power them, while Symonds and Cleveland had finished their task of setting up traps within the hall, heading back to join Atkins holding the barricades. Symonds walked over towards Naylor as he monitored the progress of Roberts' team.

"Lieutenant, we've set the delay traps around the entrance hall, but we reckon a few down in the main access corridor wouldn't go to waste."

"Symonds, keep your traps inside the hall. I don't want them taking out students fleeing Cerberus because we weren't careful."

"Aye aye, sir. We'll double up the traps inside the entrance then."

"Don't. If Cerberus launches an attack before, we may need the spares."

"Of course." The private ran over to the barricades, picking up his shotgun from where he had leant it against the wall. Naylor sighed at the private's incompetence – forgetting one's weapon in any warzone, active or peaceful, was not acceptable by any of Naylor's standards, and he would have reprimanded the private if Cerberus forces weren't within the same part of the station as them.

"_Lieutenant, this is Shepard. We've reached Orion Hall."_

"Copy that, Shepard. What's the situation with the students?"

"_They're safe at the moment, but Cerberus have been sending small squads at our location regularly."_

"Roger. We're ready at our end."

"_Okay. I'm sending Liara to your position with the students, along with their instructor. She's one of my old squad mates, so treat her with respect. We're heading on a different route, directly into the path of the Cerberus forces. Hopefully we can draw them out, so stay sharp your end."_

"Will do, Commander. Naylor out." Naylor turned back to his marines, who had finished the last of the work on their position. "Shepard's team is inbound, but we're to expect Doctor T'Soni and a group of students in an advance group. Roberts, I want you to-" A bullet smashed into the pillar Naylor was standing beside, cutting him off as he triggered his armour's kinetic barriers and dove into cover. "Shit! Contact! Roberts, get yourself and Warwick down here!" The sentinel and infiltrator jumped down, firing their rifles at the Cerberus troops pushing into the entrance hall. The deep thud of Atkins' Revenant tore through the sound of combat, the tracer rounds pinning down the Cerberus troopers not yet through the entrance to the hall and stopping them from reinforcing their comrades on the front lines. The troopers inside, however, rallied behind their guardians and centurions and advanced towards his team's barricades, the detonations of the traps Symonds had set being deflected by the rock solid shields wielded by the guardians.

"Cleveland, Clarke, tear away those guardians' shields as quick as you can! Symonds, on me!" Naylor didn't wait for the private to join him, moving forward around a pillar and coming up behind the as-of-now unaware Cerberus forces. An assault trooper ducked from a burst from Warwick's Vindicator, suddenly seeing Naylor as he moved his head away from the path of the bullets. The N7 Paladin mentally triggered his omni-shield, swinging it and smashing the trooper's helmet into the pillar and snapping his neck instantly. As the trooper crashed into the metal pillar, another of his comrades turned round from the noise to see Naylor jab the side of the shield into his neck, the super heated surface carving through the protective armour there and severing his windpipe in a single slice. Symonds blasted past in a blue blur, biotically charging into the back of a Guardian trooper and tackling the soldier to the floor. As the pair fought it out on the floor, Naylor took cover as a Centurion emptied an entire thermal clip's worth of rounds towards him, blocked only by the silicon surface of the shield. Triggering his omni-tool, Naylor fired the modified incinerate function, four small, super-heated projectiles spearing towards the Centurion as he reloaded and melting their way through his own armour. The trooper screamed as his flesh boiled from the heat.

A flash of yellow suddenly distracted Naylor from the dying Centurion, and he barely ducked to one side before a burst of biotic energy smashed into the floor close towards him, exploding in a wave of yellow energy. As Naylor looked up, he saw the picture-perfect mirror of Phoenix, wielding a pair of yellow whips and pooling the slack at his feet. Naylor immediately realised that this guy was not his newfound comrade.

The whips were pulled back, biotic energy pooling through the length of the whips before the soldier flung them over his head. The weapons crashed down, but Naylor had seen it coming, deflecting it away from his chest with his omni-shield and simultaneously ducking behind a pillar as the floor around him exploded in a wall of sparks. In a flash, the whips were brought about again, slamming into the pillar and bisecting it, a slice of the metal structure being shorn off and thrown into the head of an unaware assault trooper, killing him instantly. A third successful, and frankly lucky duck had saved his life for a third time in quick succession, and Naylor couldn't rely on the ability to evade the attacks forever. Naylor stowed his Mattock on his shoulder as he creeped around the pillar, instead calling up the dual omni-blades controlled by his omni-tools.

He didn't wait for the silicon to flash-forge and for the blades to latch themselves in the correct positions, instead diving out and swinging his leading arm, his left, towards the closest biotic whip available. The blade sparked on the whip, deflecting it away before it could smash into his chest and kill him outright. The second whip whipped around, but Naylor was inside the arc of the whip. Raising his right blade, Naylor plunged it forward, slicing through the Cerberus operative's armour and severing his right arm at the shoulder. He quickly pulled the right blade back, wary of his omni-tools' dropping power levels, and swung it around towards the operative's neck. He missed when the operative ducked his head to the left just in time, but the real intention of the attack was well masked – Naylor's left blade slammed into the operative's now exposed back, the superheated blade carving easily through the armour and killing him instantly.

"Naylor, there's an Atlas moving through the doorway. I can't hold it forever!" Atkins' cry reminded him of the wider fight. The Atlas in question was crouching low, making its way through the tall door into the hall while tracking for targets with its chain gun. A burst of fire smashed into where Symonds was still fighting the Guardian, tossing the private away from the now dead Cerberus soldier and into the open. Several Cerberus soldiers moved through the door while the Atlas gave them cover, firing at Naylor's squad and sending them scattering for cover.

Naylor screamed into his team's communication channel, open to all of the twelve squad members, tossing a smoke grenade between the Cerberus troopers and where Symonds was stuck. "Symonds' stuck in the open. Cleveland, pull him out of there! Everyone else, provide covering fire!" The adept grunted her confirmation through the squad channel, shuffling behind cover to get a better view of the stranded private, while gunfire from the rest of the group tore towards the Atlas, bullets slapped away by the kinetic barriers surrounding the walker.

"Check your fire! I'm pulling Symonds out!" The biotic poked her head round cover, focussing on the marine and clenching a fist. Grunting with exertion as she began moving the private out of the open, she didn't notice the Nemesis sniper zeroing on her position from a position to her left, below the balcony. Cleveland screamed as a round tore through her shoulder, blood flowing freely from the wound. It trashed her concentration, breaking the biotic hold she had on Symonds' form. "FUCK!"

"Roberts, get medi-gel on Cleveland's wounds. Clarke, biotic charge to Symonds and get him out the hard way!" The vanguard nodded, stowing his shotgun, drawing his Predator and preparing to save his downed comrade, but he was cut to the chase by another burst of fire from the Atlas, forcing him into cover again. The Nemesis drew a line of sight onto Symonds and fired, the first book smashing his leg and shattering the femur. The private cried out, before a second shot hit his chest and taking him out for good. The barrel of Naylor's Mattock dropped as he saw the private stop his struggling on the floor, blood slowly pooling around the bottom of his armour. "Fuck! All teams, Symonds is down. Repeat, Symonds is down. KIA."

"Damn. Cerberus is still here, Lieutenant. We need to finish this."

"Aye." Naylor forced down the pain of losing a squad mate and peered around the cover he was behind, taking stock of the situation unfolding around him. "Atkins, get a Cobra ready. Roberts and I will overload the thing's barriers, and then as soon as they're down, hit the bugger. Got it?"

"Yes sir!"

"Warwick and Clarke, keep the pressure up on the Cerberus troopers. Wallace, take over from Roberts and keep putting pressure on Cleveland's shoulders. Get to it." The marines shuffled behind their cover, readjusting their positions to do their assigned jobs. Naylor stole a glance at the mission clock he had brought up on his helmet's HUD – less than half an hour since leaving the Normandy and his ground team was down one marine killed and another wounded, with a third occupied with taking care of the wounded second. The entirety of Takeida's team was preoccupied with the cargo areas, and he hadn't heard anything from them since they had lost radio contact when entering the elevators.

Gritting his teeth, Naylor nodded towards Roberts, and the sentinel primed her omni-tool with an overload charge. The lieutenant followed suit, priming the omni-tool's energy drain function and ducking out of cover, firing his Mattock in his right hand as he watched his omni-tool lock onto the Atlas' barriers. The orange interface blinked green and Naylor mentally ordered the omni-tool to fire, energy torn from the Atlas and flooding into his omni-tool and out, as planned, to boost Naylor's own kinetic barriers. Roberts followed suit, hitting the weakened barriers with the overload and shorting out the emitters for the barriers, taking them out for a brief moment before the onboard VI brought them back to strength.

"Atkins, Cobra now!" The Corporal fired the missile launcher he had placed over his shoulder, the mass-accelerated rocket slamming into the Atlas' cockpit. At the last second, the VI onboard the walker had raised a kinetic barrier around it, and while it wasn't at full strength the impact was enough to shatter the transparent cockpit and stun the driver. Clarke and Warwick, meanwhile, had taken advantage of the chaos and pushed the surviving Cerberus forces, which were far fewer in number than before, back through the doorway and out of the entrance hall. With its infantry support retreating, the Atlas followed suit, battered first by the Cobra missile and afterwards by fire from Atkins' Revenant and the assault rifles of Naylor's team, taking damage with every hit, its barriers completely gone and cockpit highly vulnerable.

"Team, stand down and hold positions. Someone fetch a stretcher and a body bag from the Kodiak." Naylor slumped to the floor, tired from the combat and emotionally drained from losing a man. He had never struck a chord with the young private, and it had been said by the ship's doctor, Karin Chakwas, that he was very similar to a Private Jenkins on the SR-1, who had died after being over-exuberant in the line of duty, but to lose a soldier in combat was always a bad day in anyone's book. Especially Naylor's.

Cleveland was walking out of the entrance hall back into the hangar, making for the Kodiak with Wallace beside her, keeping pressure on the wound and conservatively applying medi-gel as he supported the adept's exit from the battle zone. The wounded adept would be waiting in the shuttle for the mission to be complete, Ores able to provide better medical aid in the confines of the Kodiak, while Wallace would be rejoining the front lines in the entrance hall. Despite losing two soldiers, the fight would go on as normal.

* * *

**A/N: **Tell me what you really thought of that. There are probably a tonne of things I could have done better, but there was too much to edit and I'm struggling with the stuff that I've been writing on the Rachni mission. The curse of writer's block has finally hit... and what a bitch it is.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: **Initially I was planning on uploading this earlier, but that's difficult when you're waking up at seven o'clock in the morning to go into London with friends. However, I am glad I didn't – edited about a quarter of the chapter to make it a better read, but I'm still not pleased with the result. Unlucky number thirteen, what?

* * *

**Day Thirty Seven. Grissom Academy, Petra Nebula**

Liara ran along the upper balcony, throwing warps at the Cerberus troopers below as she kept one eye on the students of the Ascension project around her. Shepard's team moved forward below, keeping the Cerberus' troopers occupied while the students, Jack and the asari flung biotics relentlessly at the troopers below. Biotic detonations rocked through the area, as, up ahead, Jack tossed biotics at every soldier that she could see. Shepard had sent Liara with the students, making full use of her biotics in concert with their emerging abilities. It was also out of the line of fire, something Liara believed Shepard had used as a big reason for sending the asari on a different route through the facility.

Ever since Therum, Liara had always had a rather shaky relationship with Shepard. Liara had initially believed that it was a result of her being too attached (and far too openly attracted) to everything prothean within the Spectre's head. However, in hindsight she realised that one of the major parts of Shepard's reasoning for never giving her a chance to prove herself in combat, instead preferring to take Wrex and Tali in the space-restricted Mako IFV, was because Liara's sole focus on biotics was matched in combat by the brute strength of Wrex's biotics and the asari-esque nature of Shepard's own biotics, and other than that she had possessed few proper combat and electronics skills to make her more useful in other fashions. Since then, Liara had tried to improve and be more useful, but even her more notable times in action – recovering Shepard's body and taking on the Shadow Broker – she had been fighting alongside others with far more experience, the drell Feron in the former case, and Shepard, Samara and the Spectre, Tela Vasir in the latter.

Even in her last combat outing before Mars during her short time on Kahje, when she had been ambushed by a Cerberus Phantom who had been acting under the orders of the Illusive Man, a drell named Quoyle had provided a somewhat useful distraction for her, diverting the Phantom's attention (at the cost of his own life in the process) and allowing the asari to strike back once the shock of being ambushed had worn off.

As a few bullets hit the wall of the barricade, Liara's attention was thankfully brought back to the present, ducking behind the reinforced glass as she called up a biotic barrier around herself. The students followed, preferring the scarce cover to defences of the biotic kind, but they were safe nonetheless. Jack, however, was spurred on by the gunfire, hurling a shockwave towards the offending turret that had been shooting up at them and watching with glee as it exploded under the pressure.

"Jennifer, we must keep moving."

"My name is JACK!"

"Jack, we need to go. The longer we stay here the longer our team at the hangar must hold out."

"Fine! Rodriguez, lead the way. Prangley, Bellarmine twins, keep hitting those bastards until we're out of the atrium. T'Soni, take the rear."

"I do not take orders from you, Jack!" Even so, Liara did what Jack had ordered to do, throwing up a biotic barrier around the three students that were still hurling warps at the Cerberus soldiers, and compelling them to pull back with the rest of the students. The automated door slammed shut, allowing her to drop the barrier as the gunfire receded. The students slumped to the floor, tired out after the extensive use of their biotics and the constant ducking and running they had been going through since they had arrived into the atrium. Liara wasn't as exhausted, her endurance far better than the young humans thanks to two decades of training along with her mother's commando bodyguards, but she was still feeling the strain. She was using every protective biotic technique she had learnt from Shiala and Fela in her youth to keep them alive while adding to the students' attack, and that was tasking for even the best of asari justicars.

"Damn, that was good."

"Ma'am, I have to disagree. That was awful."

"Stop thinking about unicorns, Rodriguez, and actually start using your biotics. T'Soni, how are you doing?"

"I guess I'm doing better than your students, Jack." Liara grabbed the canteen that she had been issued by Shepard before the mission and took a few gulps of the energy drink stored inside. Satisfied that her lowered energy reserves were well on their way back to their normal levels, she passed the canteen around the more exhausted of the students. As she knelt down and handed the canteen to Rodriguez, suddenly a radio message broke through on her radio.

"_All teams, Symonds is down. Repeat, Symonds is down. KIA." _As Liara heard the radio message, her heart sank. The Normandy's Memorial Wall, something that she and Garrus had set up with EDI's help, would be having another name added to it in the coming hours.

"Oh Goddess." Liara jumped to her feet, instantly alert and full of energy. The other students, not patched into the radio network, were confused at her sudden burst of energy. "Come on, Lieutenant Naylor's marines are holding at the hangar bay and we can't stop moving. How far is it?"

"Why does it matter? We need to rest."

"Lieutenant Naylor's squad is taking casualties, Jack. The longer we wait, the longer it will be before they can withdraw."

"Whatever. It's about another minute if we continue on this path. Shepard should take another few minutes longer – they have to redirect past the security halls while we can enter through one of the balconies and jump down." Liara nodded at the instructor, before turning and encouraging the students to get ready for another final run to the hangar bay. The young humans were nervous – it was written on their faces and Liara knew she couldn't do anything about it, only offer what were meaningless words of encouragement to them. "Let's go! Prangley, you're with me at the front. T'Soni, follow up with the rest of the students and keep their heads down. No one uses biotics unless we need to."

A chorus of "Right, ma'am" and "Yes miss" resounded through the group, but Prangley at the front stood up and began to protest.

"No biotics?"

"You have a problem with my orders, Prangley?"

"Of course I do ma'am. We're being trained for biotic artillery strikes. Why should we not use our biotics then?"

"Goddess, you're using them as soldiers?" Liara stood up, her conscious compelling her to stand up in protest over what she viewed as a misuse of the students' considerable talents. Jack looked back at her, confused, allowing the asari to continue. "Look at them! They have no experience in anything remotely close to combat. They are too young!"

"I know."

"And yet you still train them in how to- Wait, did you say 'I know'?"

"I. Fucking. Know." Jack stood up, suddenly animated despite not being in the heat of combat, accentuating every word as if her life depended on. "Maybe they're ready, maybe we've trained enough but I don't know whether that is what should be done. Perhaps we should be restricting them to support roles, helping with barriers, biotically enhancing ammo, stuff like that."

"Damn it, we've trained for fighting. Why should we abandon the past weeks' worth of training because we may not be ready?"

"Because people die if they're not ready. Zaeed died with Shepard on the Collector station because he wasn't ready, wasn't loyal to what was happening. He was a mercenary, nothing more. You are just kids."

"Shepard's only a few years older than some of us."

"Shepard is thirty one, Rodriguez. That's twelve years older than you. Twelve years. Ten years older than the Bellarmines, and nine older than Prangley. She's been fighting since 2176 – that's ten years of her life spent fighting. Do you think you can make that up with nine years of looking at posters of soldiers and practicing with stuffed dummies on a well protected and well guarded space station?" Jack's voice raised in pitch, hinting to Liara just how much she cared about the students. "Shepard will make her decision. I trust her more than I trust myself, and she _will_ choose where we go. Let's go, all of you. No biotics unless they're necessary. Save your energy."

The students picked themselves up and prepared themselves for their final charge to the hangar bay, Liara flaring her own biotics and testing how large a barrier she could pull over the students if they were to be ambushed. As they ran, some of the non-Ascension project students who had joined them in Orion Hall, engineers who had been creating prototypes and upgrading tech for the Alliance remotely triggering the doors with their omni-tools and allowing Jack and Prangley to run on through without interruption. Along the route, three other students joined them, having just met Shepard's squad in the corridors running below where they ran. Seconds ticked away as Liara and the students ran as fast as they could, but they were held up by the final door, the metal doors fused together from the opposite side for some unknown reason. Jack's frustration was visible to everyone as she and the engineers tried to open the door with their omni-tools, all failing and causing even more frustration to boil over for the instructor.

"Fuck, they've locked us out!"

"Can we not go around it?" Liara's voice was laboured, broken up by her ragged breathing.

"Not without fighting our way through all those Cerberus fuckers in the corridors. We need to break this down!"

"This isn't a hinged door, Jack. We can't just batter it down and hope that it breaks!"

"I know! Prangley, you have the strongest biotics. Back me up." Liara watched as the student walked up and the two combined their biotics, pulling at one of the parts of the door with glowing blue hands. The door groaned, refusing to give way before their efforts, until Liara stepped forwards. Channelling her biotics, the asari focussed on the fused section of the door and hit it with a warp along its entire length, dark energy surrounding the melted metal. The door audibly protested, rattling against its mountings, but when Jack and Prangley redoubled their efforts the door began to give way, eventually snapping open with a crash. The second part of the door sprung open after the first, the mechanisms inside programmed to do so. As they silently celebrated their achievement, Liara noticed what was happening inside the room, and the blood drained from her face.

Cerberus forces filled half of the entrance hall where Naylor's squad was making their stand, tracers snapping back and forth between the two sides. Guardian troopers led Assault troopers and Centurions forward, only to be beaten back by grenades, biotics and endless gunfire. Liara acted on instinct, throwing up a biotic shield and was joined by Jack, protecting the students as they barrelled along the balcony. Naylor, down in the hall, saw the biotic shields spring up and shouted at his troops, the marines averting their aim from anywhere near the students' group. Liara waved the students forward, running forward to behind where Naylor's line was being held and jumping down to the hall's floor. Jack raised a barrier around where her students were jumping down, while Liara shouted at them to stay crouched when they had landed on the floor, pointing them to the entrance to the hangar bay. Kahlee Sanders crouched behind the door there, waving the students over and directing them towards where Khan and Ores had two Cerberus shuttles powered up and ready for takeoff.

"Liara, how many students have we got?" Naylor used a lull in the gunfire to dart over to where Liara was crouching. The asari was breathing heavily, slowing her speech but giving her a chance to recover. The Lieutenant occasionally popped out of cover to fire a few shots from his Mattock, aiming haphazardly towards the Cerberus forces.

"Just over thirty!"

"Keep them moving into the hangar bay and send them towards the shuttles!" Naylor and Liara both popped out of cover once more, lining up on targets and blasting away, dropping down only when their thermal clips ran out. Naylor fed his last thermal clip into his assault rifle, quickly firing another couple of rounds over the cover they were hiding behind before Liara tapped his leg with her last spare thermal clip. "Where's Shepard's team?"

"Close by. They were a few minutes behind us, but they may have been delayed."

"Got it. We're still holding, but we could do with some more support."

"I will lend a hand once the students are safe, and so should Jack."

"Jack?" Liara shook her head in response, silently telling the Lieutenant that she couldn't answer his question. Naylor turned back to the front line as he caught a Centurion out of cover, firing a quick burst of rounds that caught the trooper in the chest and head, killing him outright.

"Although you may not need that support at this rate! Cerberus don't seem to be concentrating their attacks properly."

"I hope you're not giving tactical advice to the bastards, T'Soni!"

"Oh, not this again!" The asari gritted her teeth and flung a warp at an assault trooper, the field quickly destabilising when Roberts hurled a kinetic throw at the target. The blue explosion tore through the surrounding Cerberus troopers and sending them to the floor. Liara nodded her approval at Roberts' quick timing, before turning back to see the last of the students begin their descent towards the hangar bay. "How did you hear about that anyway?"

"I know a certain asari Spectre!"

"Atlas! The Atlas is coming back!" Roberts' cry was another reminder to Naylor that he was in a fight, and the Lieutenant turned back to see the Atlas, with its cockpit still cracked and its armour heavily damaged, walk through the doorway into the entrance hall. Atkins pulled his Revenant round to target the occupant of the cockpit, but he was waved off immediately by Naylor. Inside sat the distinctive form of Commander Shepard, her team following quickly and fanning out behind the walker as they caught the Cerberus forces from two sides. The last few soldiers were killed in the crossfire, allowing Naylor a chance to get up from his crouching position and stretch his cramped legs, the rest of his team following suit as Shepard jumped from the Atlas down to the floor.

"Naylor, how goes things?"

"We've been holding, but it's not been pretty. Cleveland's injured, Takeida's team took a beating in the cargo areas from a few automated turrets and we're all out of ammo." Naylor sighed, reloading the thermal clip in his Mattock as a way of keeping his mind away from the self-hating resulting from Symonds' death. "We also lost Private Symonds."

"We lost the radio at one point. Is he wounded too?" Naylor shook his head, bringing up the dogtags he had taken from Symonds' dead body and passing them to the commander. "Damn. We'll give him as good a burial as we can given this situation."

"We've been holding since we got here, Liara and your old squad mate arrived about a minute or so before your team arrived. Nice work with the Atlas, by the way. We almost sent a Cobra straight into your chest."

"Yeah, I wondered why one of your men had his weapon trained on me. No hard feelings, Corporal?"

"No hard feelings, Commander." Atkins' smiled beneath his helmet, letting his humour be read through the inflection in his voice. Shepard simply laughed in response.

"Just give us a heads up the next time you arrive in a liberated walker, Commander. I can't promise anything otherwise."

"Shut up, Lieutenant." Shepard walked over to where Jack was sitting on one of the benches, slumping down beside the teacher and embracing her like an old friend. The biotic returned the gesture, animatedly getting involved in a conversation with the Spectre as the rest of Shepard's team and Naylor's team stood around waiting for their next orders. Suddenly, however, Jack perked up, head looking around quickly between her students and the soldiers in the entrance hall.

"Shit, where the hell is Rodriguez?" The student in question dove through the door on the upper balcony, pursued by bullets from a trio of Cerberus soldiers following her. Jack jumped up immediately, flaring her biotics wildly as Shepard drew her shotgun, Naylor snapped his Mattock up, Liara drew her Carnifex and the remaining soldiers in the room pulling their weapons from their backs or pushing them into their shoulders and trying to target the fast moving Cerberus soldiers. Rodriguez tried to pick herself up from the floor, pulling herself along on hands and knees while the troopers began to catch up. The lead trooper tried to grab her leg, only getting a partial grip before being flung back into the wall by a wave of biotics, back cracking in the impact. The second met his end at the hands of the same biotics, being flung from the balcony and slamming headfirst into the back of the abandoned Atlas. The final trooper froze in place, staring as Jack shattered the glass wall around the balcony and flung the glass shards into his face, the trooper screaming in pain at the same time as Jack screamed in anger. As Naylor looked up, he suddenly saw how Liara's arm was outstretched, biotics flaring wildly as she kept the stasis field in place until the glass stopped flying. The asari lowered her arm as Rodriguez picked herself up and jumped down from the balcony, running towards her instructor who simply glared in response. The student hung her head in shame, moving past to join the rest of Jack's students in the shuttles.

Naylor looked towards Shepard, seeking new orders from the Commander. The Spectre nodded towards the door, Naylor's team instantly beginning to pack up their positions and make their way back to their Kodiak. Cortez was bringing his shuttle into the hangar bay as well, taking the number of shuttles flying back to the Normandy up to four, with Khan, Ores and Sanders piloting the other three. Despite the number, with a capacity of forty eight, it would take all four shuttles, with people packed into them like sardines, to carry the entire group of fifty two in one lift.

Naylor's team boarded their own shuttle, piloted by Khan but with Sara along as a co-pilot, saving an extra space in the back. Cleveland waited in the shuttle, along with the body bag and stretcher that highlighted where Symonds's body lay. There was space for one, maybe two more people, Naylor realised, and he stuck his head out of the door and looked for anyone who was still waiting for a space on a shuttle. Almost immediately, EDI and Liara jumped aboard, cramming into the last available space inside the Kodiak. Sara gave Khan the go ahead, taking the shuttle off the ground and angling the nose towards the exit to the hangar bay. Naylor stood, for him at least, uncomfortably close to Liara, a fact not noticed by the asari who was looking around at the tired faces being revealed as helmets were carefully pulled off in the confines of the shuttle. The battle had barely felt like it had taken that much time, but Naylor's squad had been fighting for a good long portion of the time, and it was easy to lose track of time in any fight.

"Lieutenant, are you alright? Your body shows signs similar to the symptoms of fatigue."

"Of course I'm tired, EDI, but that isn't the problem. I'm just not feeling right."

"Do you require any medical aid? Medi-gel, pharmaceuticals, stimulants?"

"EDI, do you mind?" Liara stepped into the conversation, cutting the synthetic AI off before Naylor's anger boiled over in the conversation. "Peter, this is about Symonds, correct?"

"Yeah. It's strange – I never got a chance to know him as a person, but it still hit home like a freight train."

"I cannot not say that I know the feeling." Liara placed a hand on his shoulder, stroking gently. "Don't try and focus on what happened. Instead think about everything good about Symonds' life."

"That's the point. There wasn't much to think about. He kept to himself, didn't really join in with the rest of the team except on a few, small occasions." Naylor shrugged his shoulder, throwing Liara's hand off. He was far from happy, and the asari could tell it. "I just don't want to talk about it."

"Of course." The shuttle ride back was long and painful for all onboard, the thoughts of many occupied by Symonds' death at the hands of a single Cerberus Nemesis. When the Kodiak finally landed, EDI and most of Naylor's marines jumped off as quickly as their tired bodies would allow. Cleveland and the synthetic made their way instantly to the elevator, heading for Chakwas' medbay, but Naylor nodded towards Atkins, Takeida and Clarke. The four marines picked up the stretcher where Symonds' body lay, lifting it up and resting it on their shoulders. Bending their legs, the temporary pall-bearers ducked the stretcher through the door to the Kodiak, the hubbub in the hangar bay instantly stopping as people saw the four men carrying the stretcher over their shoulders.

As soon as they were clear, Khan activated the hangar bay's port service crane and immediately moved the Kodiak up and away from the hangar floor. The following Alliance Kodiak landed, Shepard's team disembarking as Cortez did the same with the service crane on the opposite side of the hangar. The Cerberus Kodiaks carrying the students landed afterwards, the students jumping off and allowing Ores and Khan, taking over from Sanders in the cockpit of the second Cerberus shuttle, to store the shuttles away at the sides of the hangar.

Every crewmember and squad mate present gathered around the stretcher as Shepard knelt before Symonds' cold body. The Spectre took the marine's dogtags and shotgun, laying the latter beside the stretcher and gently squeezing the tags in her hand. Looking around at the Alliance and non-Alliance crew members, she rose up to her full extent. "Symonds died a death that we couldn't predict. He died doing a job he enjoyed and among comrades he trusted. I can't promise that we can give him a fitting burial, but I will try." The Spectre snapped to attention and saluted, the rest of the assembled Alliance crew joining instantly. Out of sheer respect, Liara bowed her head and offered a prayer of passing to Athame. Shepard waited a few seconds, before lowering her hand. "Alright, back to your stations. We'll be making for the Citadel to drop off Lieutenant Sanders and the students before returning back to Tuchanka. Lieutenant Cortez, get a detail to prepare Symonds' body in a void casket. The burial in space will take place in three hours. Crew dismissed."

Naylor took the first elevator up to deck three, heading immediately for the crew quarters and taking one of the empty beds still clad in his armour. A good number of his marines filed in over the next few minutes, all having shed their armour and falling asleep within minutes of laying their head on the beds. Naylor stayed awake for a few minutes after the last of his marines had fallen asleep, trying not to crowd his thoughts with anything that happened that day. The Normandy was moving back to the Citadel once more – with good fortune, he could pay Tevos a long-overdue visit. He knew that Shepard would have jobs for the crew to complete during their time on the station, and Naylor would have to find another marine to replace Symonds in his team. But there would be time to organise that en route to the station. For now, it was a time to rest and recuperate energy.

* * *

**A/N: **Editing this chapter has been a really annoying task while writing what I think has been the hardest and most annoying part of Galaxy at War so far (it only gets harder after that!) and searching for a new laptop on the heap of junk that is my own machine. You'd have thought that computer-making companies would understand how to make a website that will work on old computers, but evidently not...

Regardless, at least I don't have to fight the same fight as my brother. He wants to buy a Mac for university in a heavily anti-Apple household… the fool! Then again, I was a fool for not buying a laptop last year before I did my first year, so it's not all that one-sided.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **So, having worked for an entire day trying to reconstruct this chapter from a lost document, here's chapter fourteen (or as I have it, thirteen point five). And as if the universe didn't want me to post this, after doing all the work last night I got called up for a _second_ T20 match in two days, and heavily bruised and pulled my right shoulder in doing so (I'm a right-handed person – it hurts!).

If you know anything about cricket, you'll know how a wicket keeper _does not bowl_ at all, like ever_._ Hence of course, as a wicket keeper, I was bemused when I was put in the team at number seven and told to bowl open the bowling with my four overs. Thankfully, my team was far better at choosing the batting line up than the bowlers and ended up batting so well we only lost four wickets, so I didn't have to bat with a non-functioning shoulder…

* * *

**Day Thirty Nine. Citadel Space Station, Serpent Nebula**

"Phoenix!" The ex-Cerberus operative turned to see Lieutenant Naylor running out of the airlock, pulling to a halt beside the operative by the dock's Avina terminal. "You didn't think you'd be able to get yourself away _before_ we got a chance to say goodbye?"

"We? I don't see anyone else saying goodbye." On cue, Liara edged her way through the Alliance crewmembers exiting the Normandy's airlock, swiftly jogging over towards the Avina terminal as soon as she was clear.

"Sorry I'm late. The Ascension project students were pestering me with questions and Miss Nought was no help at all."

"Don't worry. I was just about to wish Phoenix well when he joins Hackett's staff on the front lines."

"Yes. Phoenix, it's only been a few days but I have enjoyed your company." The asari extended her hand out to the young human, who looked at it before taking the offered hand in his own. "I wish you all the best. If you ever need anything, just let either of us know."

"I will." The operative began making his way towards the security gate at the exit of the dock, but quickly turned and dived around a keeper, returning back to the pair standing beside the Avina terminal. "Thank you. Both of you. I was giving up before you arrived, but you at least gave me a chance to hit back at the people that did all this to me. I wish you both the best, and hopefully we can meet again."

"I would like that. Stay safe, Phoenix, and may the Goddess guide you through the next few weeks." The operative began walking through the security cordon, ignoring the stares from the turian C-Sec officers manning the weapons scanners as the scratched-out Cerberus insignia reflected the overhead lights into their eyes. As he walked through the first weapon scanner, the detectors screamed out in alarm as they picked up the biotic whips and the unconcealed firearm that the operative carried on his hip. Two armed officers stationed at the door to the dock's main elevator began making towards the operative, Phaeston rifles raised and aimed towards him, but Naylor, running over to the checkpoint, called them off before they moved to attack Phoenix.

"Is there a reason why one of your soldiers is walking through my scanner while carrying an M-3 pistol, Cerberus-adorned armour and a large bundle of unidentified biotic technology Lieutenant?"

Naylor brought up his omni-tool, bringing up a message received from Shepard a few minutes before Phoenix was due to leave the Normandy's airlock. "Yeah. Orders from Spectre Shepard. Former Cerberus operative Phoenix, your man with all that equipment, is to proceed to Dock A14, where an Alliance frigate will take him to Nova Station to join a task force under Admiral Hackett." Seeing in the reflection in the glass that Phoenix was now facing the checkpoint once more, Naylor held out a hand to tell the operative to wait for everything to be cleared.

"Okay. Marius, can you check the Spectre codes?"

"Is there a problem?" Shepard walked up behind the Lieutenant as he rested against the counter beside the security desk.

"We're just making sure that the Spectre codes on the Lieutenant's message clear out. Shouldn't take a few more minutes if we're not disturbed."

"Officer, I'm a Spectre. This guy clears out." The officer snorted before realising who the human talking to him was, mandibles flaring in response and quickly hurrying to clear the operative through. "Thank you."

Naylor turned back to Phoenix who was standing just beyond the second security cordon, nodding and watching as the he called up a skycar from the taxi terminal just in front of the elevator. A red X3M flew into view, and Liara, moving up to stand beside the security desk with Naylor, gave Phoenix a final wave before he got into the skycar and flew away. Despite not having even seen an asari until barely a week before, Liara and Phoenix had become good friends over the course of the past two days, as had Naylor, and both were genuinely sad to see the operative go.

"Hey Shepard. Thanks for the help."

"No problem Naylor. Happy to help. Do you have any plans for the next few days?"

"I was planning on going down to Tayseri Ward to speak to Symonds' parents. Their apartment's on the Citadel and I understand they already know what has happened. Other than that, there's Cleveland to cart off to a hospital here on the Citadel or to the nearest Alliance hospital ship and I've a few things to sort out at the Alliance barracks on station with finding a replacement and getting some new equipment for the team. Oh, and of course some 'normal' R and R. Why you asking?"

"Listen, I know he was your marine but I'd like to take this one on myself."

"I'd usually argue but I suppose you're set on this. Their address is Apartment 271 in the Tarran Apartment Block on Tayseri. The apartment block is clearly signposted, so I expect that you won't be running around like a headless chicken."

"A headless what?" Bemused, Liara spoke up from beside the Lieutenant. Shepard simply smiled.

* * *

Shepard was sitting inside the skycar, mentally wanting it to go faster and barely restraining herself from lightening the vehicle with her biotics and getting Jack to use her own abilities and give it a proverbial biotic kick up the drive core. Instead she sat, fidgeting anxiously as the long flight to the far point of Tayseri Ward flew by. The fifty-odd kilometre length of the Citadel could be easily traversed in a few minutes in a skycar or shuttle flying flat out, but the regulated speed of the Citadel's taxis meant that the journey would take nearly an hour and a half. And for the Spectre, it wasn't fun.

"Shit Shepard, you're fidgeting about as fast as a kid needing the toilet. Loosen up!"

"There isn't any alcohol, Jack. Some bureaucratic bull about no alcohol on public transport."

"Well fuck that shit. You're not exactly making this easier on yourself. Your underling was going to be doing this before you volunteered."

"Yeah, you volunteered to help."

"I wanted to see some fun, damn it! Instead you're taking me to some sappy shit in an apartment block. I might as well find a club and get wasted."

"Whatever. So how have you been since you left after the Collectors?"

"I can say that I haven't been locked up, so I'm doing better than you, Shepard." The Spectre shook her head, laughing as the former convict joked at her own expense. "Kahlee Sanders gave me a chance to change everything and I took it a few weeks after I left your ship."

"You've been teaching for six months then?"

"No. About five – I took most of the cheerleader bitch's money with the quarian's help before I left. Spent a month drinking my way around the Terminus Systems and not getting into trouble. You're rubbing off on me, girl scout."

"You know you're enjoying it. Jack, you do look really, really good."

"Are you trying to hit on me, Shepard? I told you already, I don't play for the other side."

"And I'm married to a quarian in all but name. I mean it, though. You're looking much healthier than the last time we spoke and every time you're around your students you look more energetic, more alive."

"Hell, you're right. I wouldn't say that I love them but they're like my kids – you saw just how far I'd go to protect them. Even Liara found herself with a bit of the protection vibe. You know, from what I've heard you never took her out much on the SR-1."

"It was complicated, but I'm starting to think now that I made a mistake with leaving her behind. I always thought my own biotics were a match for hers, but she's more powerful in different ways with her abilities than I am." Shepard mulled over her next words, trying to choose them carefully even though she knew that the likelihood of Liara finding out about the words she would say was incredibly low. "I wonder whether keeping her behind on the Normandy when we went after Matriarch Benezia was a mistake or not."

"You made your choice Shepard, and it worked – you stopped the Matriarch."

"More like she stopped herself."

"You okay girl scout? You're sounding rather downbeat."

"I don't know. I'm tired, I've been on more painkillers than the entire rest of the galaxy and the one thing that can actually help me out is currently missing half way across the galaxy. I'm confident that we can win but I'm struggling to see how, and struggling to see it through."

"You'll do fine, Shepard. I doubt that you'll fail us now. Hey, we're nearing the end of the Ward. You ready to do this?"

"Yeah. Just cover your tattoos up as much as you can." Shepard ignored the playful scowl she received from the biotic teacher, straightening her dress uniform and putting herself in the driver's seat beside the skycar's door. Jack checked her leather jacket and pulled it around her shoulders even more tightly. She wasn't nervous, but to have someone who was covered in tattoos and wearing a studded leather jacket talk about your young son's death was something that Jack knew would cause some friction. It had been during an evacuation of _her_ students that Symonds had been killed, and Jack owed it to the parents for actually doing this.

* * *

David Symonds walked the pair through the entrance hall of his little apartment, and even though she was staring at his back, Shepard knew that he was wary at the fact that he had just admitted into his home. It was the fact that the most famous person in the galaxy at that point, _the_ Commander Shepard, had first been seen by him while standing outside the door to his apartment, and beside her was a person who in all honesty looked like she was going to 'liberate' half of the Symonds family's possessions. When they arrived in the lounge, Shepard heard a hitch of breath and the clattering of a plate dropping against a granite worktop. As she looked around, Shepard saw a glimpse through into one of the bedroom, seeing one of the hideous recruitment posters that featured her 'likeness', something she had never liked or even believed to be a true representation of anything close to what she looked like.

"Commander, this is my wife Jennifer." David didn't notice the flinch that played itself out on Jack's face as he mentioned her name. Shepard focussed on the lounge itself, seeing the person that David was referring to as his wife. Her skin was pale, obviously shocked at who she was seeing. "I know you were in command on the ship that our son served on, but I do not hold anything against you. Young Jamie died doing what he loved."

"Private Symonds, I mean Jamie, was very much one of the more socially active members of the Normandy's crew. He was always a fun person to be around in the mess hall, and it always seemed that wherever the loudest part of the mess hall was, he would be."

"That sounds like our Jamie."

"Tell me about him before he signed up."

"Jamie was always, as you said, loud. He grew up with tales of your heroics in the Skyllian Verge and on Elysium. It just seemed like a cruel intervention that he was to die at Elysium."

"He wanted to be a marine?"

"All his life. Why?"

"When he joined the Normandy, I asked all the new recruits why they accepted the transfer to the most dangerous vessel in the galaxy. Symonds said that he was doing it because the Reapers were forcing him and everyone else in the galaxy to take arms. He always said that he was never a fan of fighting but that he would do what he must."

"While he was loud, he was not one for shouting about himself. That was why we loved him so much." Jennifer sank into her seat as she tried her best to not burst into tears. "Jamie died over Elysium, yes? How did he die?"

"I do not know how, but he died for a good cause."

"What was that Commander?" Jack rose from the seat she had taken at the side of the room, walking to behind where Shepard was sitting and leaning lightly against the chair.

"Symonds died to protect me and my students. I'm Jacqueline Nought. I was a biotic instructor on Grissom Academy. Protecting me and my students was why Shepard and the crewmembers of her ship were there two days ago. Symonds died to give my students a chance to escape through the hangar bay in captured shuttles." Jack paused, collecting her thoughts before continuing. "His unit's leader, Naylor, told me that he died facing off against the soldiers that were threatening my own students. Without what he did, I doubt that the same number of students that got away that day would have got away. He saved their lives."

"Symonds died as he lived – brave and determined."

"Thank you for sharing that, Commander. We needed to hear that."

"It is no problem. If you ever need to talk, I can be there if you need me."

"Thank you once again, Commander." The Spectre stood up from the sofa, joining Jack as they exited the apartment. As the doors closed, they could hear the first audible sobs from inside the building, and almost out of instinct Jack began hurrying away from the door. The skycar they had taken as a taxi was still idling in the parking lot out from the houses, and Shepard opened the vehicle up and got inside. Jack jumped inside as well, burying her head in the leather of the back seats.

"Jack, are you okay?"

"Damn it, I'm not! I have the death of two students and a soldier on my hands because I wasn't good enough."

"Symonds didn't die because of anything you did, Jack."

"Then what did he die for, huh? WHAT. DID. HE. DIE. FOR?" Jack's biotics began flaring, her anger boiling up in the form of the wildly reacting dark energy.

"He died doing his job. I don't know what else I can say. But it wasn't your fault at all." Jack seemed to calm at her words, but Shepard knew that inside the operative was almost yearning to let loose on something. "Alright, we're going up to the Presidium."

"Why the hell are we going there?"

"Because I think we could do with biotically blasting a few diplomats around. Well, actually I've been asked to assist a Spectre in investigating something and I could use your help with the inevitably explosive endgame."

"Explosive?"

* * *

Shepard and Jack walked out from the elevator, the Spectre tapping away on her omni-tool with Naylor and Liara, who were "happily" (to quote the Lieutenant) taking Javik around some of the Citadel and showing him the sights of the Citadel. Shepard was in the Spectre Offices to meet the salarian Spectre Jondum Bau, who had discovered information that could very well implicate several high up diplomats in the hanar embassy in a plot to assist the Reapers, and she knew that to leave this particular revelation unattended could potentially prove disastrous for the war effort.

Her worst-case scenario ran along the lines of indoctrination among the hanar embassy resulting in the Reapers gaining a backdoor to the Citadel's information networks, and with some extreme hacking efforts, it could allow them to tap into communications between the Council races or even wreak havoc on the station with access to the station's already over-taxed power grids. All this suggested to Shepard that taking immediate action on this was the only thing that she could do, and it was why she was getting in touch with Naylor, currently down at the junction between the Presidium and Kithoi Ward.

_Naylor, I need a small squad up in the embassy district ASAP. How soon can you get them there?_

_Shepard_

The blinking light of a returned message almost instantly brought her attention back down to her omni-tool as the small gaggle of people in the area parted ahead of her.

_I can have a team of four, myself and Liara armed and armoured in fifteen minutes, down to the embassy district in thirty._

_Naylor_

Holding off on confirming Naylor's orders, Shepard quickly got to the steps leading up to the Spectre Offices where she was out of the flow of people before replying, tapping away at her omni-tool quickly before sending the message away with a flick of her hand.

_Do it._

_Shepard._

"Spectre Shepard. Jondum Bau, Special Tactics and Recon. Thank you for coming. I understand you are extremely busy, but this is highly important." Bau was leaning against the wall outside the Spectre Office, clad in a suit of black armour with yellow trim. He was a far cry from the other Spectres that Shepard had met – both Saren, back in 2183, and Tela Vasir in 2185 were obvious warriors, but when Shepard looked at the salarian in front of her, she didn't see anything like the anger that could be seen in Saren's face or the ferocity that ran through Tela's facial markings. But she knew that the lack of an obvious trait marking him as a Spectre was the reason why Bau was a Spectre. It was the same way that the STG was so effective – if you were faced with an STG operative with no uniform, you wouldn't know it.

"It's no problem. So, what have you got?" Jack walked up behind Shepard, hovering at her shoulder as the Spectres greeted each other.

"Shepard, who is your companion?"

"Bau, this is Jack, one of my former colleagues. I can trust her."

"Can you be certain that she won't spread what we know or will find out?"

"Yes."

"Then let me tell you what I know. Of course, you already know that I have information suggesting that high-level hanar officials may be indoctrinated. Two years ago, an Alliance launched a special operations raid against a Batarian research facility…"

* * *

Shepard, Jack and Bau burst into the hanar ambassador's office, pistols raised and, in the case of the former two, biotics flaring and barriers in place. The hanar diplomat, floating in front of them, had its 'back' turned to them, but as soon as Bau spoke up a pair of humans rose from the seats next to the doorway, staring down at the group entering the office. Naylor and a squad of his marines, along with Liara and a squad of turian C-Sec officers were holding a cordon around the hanar embassy, preventing anyone from getting in or out of the embassy. The Council was being briefed on the revelations of the day by Bailey, who had accepted what Shepard and Bau had found out with barely contained disdain – to have to brief the four most powerful politicians in the galaxy was a daunting prospect.

"Ambassador Zymandis? Or should I say "Regards the Works of the Enkindlers in Despair?"

"It seems this one has been apprehended, but confinement is irrelevant." Zymandis turned around, facing the three intruders. His voice dropped, coming through on the translators of those in the room as dark and menacing. "The work of the Enkindlers cannot be stopped."

"The Reapers are not the Protheans! Why are you helping them?"

"This one has been informed that the Enkindlers became the Collectors, and the Collectors served the Reapers before you defeated them. Therefore, as a servant of the Enkindlers, this one must too serve the Reapers."

"You are kidding me!"

"Your scepticism does not matter. When the Enkindlers uplift us as their chosen, the galaxy will bear witness."

"You don't have to do this. We will beat the Reapers and nobody will be uplifted! There is no reason to support them!"

"Your belief in your victory is mistaken. Our planetary defence network largely automated."One of the two humans walked over to the main terminal behind Zymandis' desk, typing away on the holographic screen to reveal a progress bar begin to fill. "It can be disabled with a single virus, which I have just uploaded." Shepard raised her pistol towards the ambassador, who simply floated behind the human who continued to work on the terminal he was standing behind. Bau started forward towards the terminal, covered on the opposite side of the desk by Jack who's biotics were flaring wildly.

"A virus would be detected unless sent on a low-priority channel. It has a time lag! I can still stop the upload!" As the Spectre ran forward, however, he was tripped and crushed against the floor by the second human, a brute of a man who kept him pressed against the floor with the barrel of his pistol. Shepard shifted her own aim from the human at the terminal towards the human crushing Bau, but she was cut off by the click of a pistol's safety being taken off. The second human had drawn a pair of pistols and were aiming them at Jack and Shepard at the same time, his aim not wavering slightly.

"You may be delayed."

"Help Bau! I'll handle this!" An obviously female form shimmered as it ran in front of Shepard from the embassy's entrance, kicking the brute away from Bau as she jumped off of his back and vaulted over the second human at the desk. The figure cuffed the second human over the head with the heel of her hand, sending him stumbling towards Jack who tossed him aside and into the wall, snapping his neck audibly. Kasumi uncloaked from behind the desk and quickly worked away at the terminal, halting the upload and breathing a sigh of relief as she did so.

Jack's dealing with the second human had given Shepard the window to take out the brute attacking Bau, tossing him against the ceiling with a biotic pull and stitching a line of bullets into his chest with her Predator. Lifting Bau from the floor, the pair had the chance to see Jack pick Zymandis up by a tentacle and biotically toss him, body first, like a basketball into a wire mesh bin at the side of the room, then hitting him with a slam to painfully crush him inside his new wire cell.

"Shit, he was a pussy. Didn't even fight."

* * *

**A/N: **As far as a day-long reconstruction goes, how was it? Made a few changes at the end with the whole confrontation between Shepard, Bau and Zymandis, but it had to be that Jack had to get the last line in somehow.


	17. Chapter 17 (Tuchanka)

**A/N: **This is definitely the hardest of the three bonus chapters to write, as it was hard to come up with something outside of the normal stuff in the game and I struggle to write when things don't flow naturally. That and the fact that I've not been in the best of health over the past few days. Crippling headaches really don't do much for your writing skills, nor do panic attacks over having to pack for university. I'm convinced I'll forget something major, like underwear or basic supplies like pens, paper and such. So I had to cut some stuff because of that.

And a final thing – the Ravagers you see in the tunnels and in the fighting afterwards don't exist. I replace them with brutes. Everybody loves brutes.

* * *

**Day Fifty. The Hollows, Tuchanka, Krogan DMZ**

Cortez held the Kodiak in place as Wrex leapt from the shuttle and into the fray. The red armoured krogan landed slap bang on top of one of the husks charging into the Hollows and crushed its spine beneath his immense bulk. As another pair turned their attentions to the battlemaster, he drew his Claymore and fired twice, tearing through their weak armoured skin and turning their chests into a synthetic mush.

"Shepard, things have gone to shit."

"I guessed. You and Mordin protect Eve. We'll go in and clean out the Reapers."

"Do me proud, Shepard!" The Commander leapt from the shuttle with Garrus, Javik, James and EDI behind her. Cortez flew the shuttle off to find a safe position, Wrex following on the ground as fast as he was able. With a nod to her teammates, Shepard descended the stairs into the Hollows.

The ancient Krogan site was far less glamorous than the mental picture she had painted three years ago while talking to Wrex. The stone columns were crumbling, two had already collapsed to the ground and the entire area reeked of death. So much for the 'no fighting on the Hollows' rule, she thought grimly as she clutched her Shruiken tightly in two hands. Her team barely needed any words to know what to do – the krogan already fighting inside the site were battling hard for their lives, having already taken out dozens of Reaper husks, but they were being dragged down quickly by the numbers.

"Alright, we draw the line here. No more krogan die this day!" As Shepard shouted to her squad, her biotics were already being primed for a charge down the stairs and into the main arena. Letting her Shuriken fall into one hand, the Spectre flashed across the ground in a blue blur, tackling into a pair of husks with a biotic explosion that sent them slamming across the floor and against the wall. Her biotics shimmering around her, Shepard turned to backhand a husk in the face, the ladylike action being made fatal with her biotics. The unfortunate Reaper convert fell to the ground with its neck snapped.

The green beam from Javik's particle rifle whipped across the open space, Shepard barely managing to duck as soon as she saw it heading her way. Another pair of husk were disintegrated by the weapon, while a third found itself being slowly eaten away by channelled dark energy. Seeing an opportunity, Shepard sent a shockwave barrelling towards the husk, detonating the biotic effect and scything down the husks around her target as the explosion of dark energy tore at their bodies. EDI, James and Garrus were far more methodical than their biotic counterparts, taking out husks with disciplined kill shots. Occasionally they would make use of other means of killing the Reapers, James for instance firing an explosive round from his shotgun to take down husks through the force of the explosion rather than through shredding them with metal. EDI's tech powers combined with Garrus's marksmanship, the former incinerating husks that had been taken out by Garrus's sniper rifle while they were distracted by her holographic decoy. The effect was that the floor was littered with burning husks, corralling the Reapers into streams that Shepard, Javik and James would lay into.

In a few quick minutes, the floor of the Hollows was turned from stone into a carpet of synthetic bodies. Shepard was thankful that her own armour had air filtering, and that the corpses of Reapers didn't smell, as if it had been any organic race, breathing would have been a difficult task. Yet the husks were still approaching, thick and fast. Suddenly the roof was smashed through, the corpse of a brute still in its orbital assault pod crushing a pair of husks charging towards Shepard's position at the bottom of the stairs.

"_Shepard, this is Naylor. We're on our way down."_

"I hear you!" The silhouette of a Kodiak shuttle could be seen in the sun through the hole in the roof, the door opening to where Naylor's team stood packed into the Kodiak like sardines. Two ropes fell to the ground, and Shepard had only a few seconds to realise that the squad was about to bioti-rope into the area. Naylor and Clarke were first, dropping at an insane speed before being slowed down by mass effect fields before they slammed into the ground and became a mushy stain on the floor. The pair fanned out, joined by Shepard as she advanced up to where they had taken cover. Immediately, as soon as she had arrived, another two dropped to the floor, Atkins and Takeida unfolding their heavy weapons before adding a fusillade of heavy rounds to the ordinance tearing into the Reaper forces. By the time that the last two, Warwick and Anning, had made their descent, the Reaper attack had been stalled and thrown back.

"Nice of you to join us, Naylor."

"This is the biggest fight of the war so far. We're here for the duration, commander."

"Good to hear." Shepard turned around to hear Wrex's bellowing voice come from the top of the stairs, flanked by two krogan guards and followed by Mordin as he descended into the arena.

"Let the whole of Tuchanka know that Reaper blood has soaked our soil!" Cheers and grunts of approval could be heard from the surviving krogan in the balconies above the floor of the Hollows. Wrex's armour was covered in orange blood, a symbol of the harsh fighting outside as the Reapers had been trying to flood the site with reinforcements.

"We need to make it to the Shroud. The turian airstrike is imminent!" Shepard ran over to Wrex, trying to cut short his attempt to revel in the glory of combat. Fortunately, he understood that time was pressing, and to be late was to lose the chance at curing the genophage completely.

"Eve is safe, Commander. Vitals are strong. We are ready to transport her to the Shroud."

"What is a salarian doing here?" The roar of another krogan caught the attention of everyone inside. The owner of the voice pushed and shoved his way through Naylor's marines, only stopping when the Staff Lieutenant turned with his omni-shield lit up and flames visibly billowing off the superheated surface. "Nobody said anything about this."

"Urdnot Wreav. Problematic. Known to be violent." Shepard nodded at Mordin's words. Liara had clued everyone up as to the situation on Tuchanka before the mission had begun, with Wrex filling in the details that she missed out. One of the people she had warned Shepard about was Wreav – if Wrex died, Wreav would take over the alliance his brother had built. And the younger Urdnot wanted total revenge for what had happened.

Wrex and Wreav went toe to toe, arguing over Mordin's attendance in the Hollows, a sacred site for the race that the salarians had effectively neutered. It very nearly ended when Wrex head butted Wreav into submission, slamming the younger Urdnot to the ground as he proclaimed the trust he placed in the salarian. However, two other supporters of Wreav stalked forward, weapons drawn and pointed at the krogan leader.

"ENOUGH!" All heads turned as Eve stood at the top of the steps, looking down on the confrontation between the two parties. The krogan around the sides of the Hollows looked on as the shaman walked down the stairs and split the two factions in two. "You can stay here and let old wounds fester as krogan have always done. Or you can fight the enemy you were born to destroy and win a new future for our children! I chose to fight!" The shaman bellowed her words out across the hall, and every krogan back straightened a fraction at the words. "Who will join me?"

"I will." Shepard found her mouth saying the words and very nearly stopped herself from doing so. She stepped out into the path that Eve had created in the group and straightened her posture as much as she could, trying to seem as tall as she could in the situation. The click of weapon safeties could be heard as her team and Naylor's group shouldered their rifles, the Lieutenant nodding towards the Commander as she walked up to join Eve on a piece of rubble overlooking the rest of the group. Shepard nodded back, turning to look at Wrex.

"And so will I. Now hold you heads high like true krogan. There is a Reaper that needs killing!"

* * *

"Krogan column, this is turian wing Artimec. Our approach vector to the shroud is locked. We are five minutes out and counting."

"Copy Artimec. We're trying to make up lost time." Shepard turned back to her seat, looking on at the discussion between Eve and Wrex as her own team checked their weapons and cleared any dirt and repaired any damage with their omni-tools.

"Wreav isn't the only krogan wanting revenge for the genophage, Wrex. And he's certainly not the only one in your own clan. You'll have to placate them somehow."

"I'll demand, sorry ask, that the Council return some of our old territory from before the rebellions." As Wrex spoke, Mordin looked towards the battlemaster and leaned forward in his seat, listening intently to the krogan's plans. "We'll need room to expand and rebuild, so we can recapture the glory of the ancient days."

"Hope that 'ancient days' are from before krogan rebellions. Otherwise will repeat history that lead to genophage. Expansion potentially problematic."

"We were a proud race, Mordin. We had dreams once."

"Before salarian interference." Mordin's voice was downcast, but Eve quickly interrupted him before the salarian could lay the blame on his own people for the plight of the krogan.

"No. We destroyed our own planet ourselves. Technology made life too easy, so we looked for new challenges in ourselves. Nuclear war killed Tuchanka."

"And now our planet is rubble, and we'll need new places to live." Wrex sounded hopeful, even though Shepard knew that an expansion of krogan territory and the colonising of planets would be laced with problems. If they expanded to the galactic east, towards the Salarian Union and Alliance space, the risk of anti-salarian attacks was huge, while expanding to the south would be the same, just with the turians instead for their deployment of the genophage. Expanding north was no good either, as there was only the Citadel and a few already colonised planets that would rail against krogan expansion near them. To the west lay asari space, but while possible due to the size of unexplored space there, it was krogan expansion towards Lusia and the threatening of Thessia that had led to the krogan rebellions in the first place. Like the genophage cure, it would take a long time to properly work out and perfect the plans, and there would be barely any chance for that to happen while the Reapers were still in the galaxy.

"I'd say helping to defeat the Reapers would go well towards getting the krogan support from the Council."

"Or ten once we've got the genophage finally finished. You don't know how fast we can pop them out!" Wrex's comments drew a sharp glare from Eve sitting opposite him, shutting the battlemaster up in his tracks.

"Commander, on the shuttle, you were saying something before we were interrupted."

"Yeah. Linron sabotaged the Shroud. The cure won't work if we deployed it as it is."

"Of course!" Mordin piped up from behind Shepard, looking at a few notes on his omni-tool's display. "Temperature of cure could be easily altered by sabotaged programs before release to not function within designed ranges. Familiar with STG work, can easily correct."

"What kind of deal was she trying to cut?"

"Salarian help in return for no cure being deployed. As much as they would be helpful, we need the krogan to fight on Palaven and we need them now. I didn't want to risk losing both your support and Victus's."

"You considered sabotaging the genophage, Shepard? My, my, you have changed."

"It was never an option I would take. I know you were angry over Virmire, Wrex, and I promised you we'd find a way then. Here's that promise."

"And it didn't take an asari lifetime to complete. I knew I liked you, Shepard!" Suddenly, the tomkah they had been travelling ground to a halt, throwing Shepard forward into Garrus's back. "Why have we stopped?"

"No idea. You all stay here, I'll go take a look." Shepard jumped out of the tomkah's exit hatch and back into the Tuchankan sun, the heat immediately causing her to scrabble for her nice, cool helmet. Naylor had already left the tomkah his squad was riding in, and he made his way over to the Commander as she looked upon the cause of their delay.

"Something's missing, Commander."

"True, Lieutenant. Wrex, the bridge is out. There's a large section of road that's completely unstable, but engineers are already working on it."

"Good. Kick them into line of you have to, Shepard. And I do mean kick."

"Will do, Wrex." Shepard moved to question the lead krogan scout about the progress of the repairs, but she stopped as soon as she realised Naylor wasn't following. The Paladin was looking up at the Shroud, and the green colour of the cloud above it. Shepard couldn't gauge the Lieutenant's expression, hidden behind his faceplate as it was. He could have been fine underneath the helmet, but she knew she had to inquire anyway. "Naylor, you okay?"

"Yeah. Just wondering that what the else the Reapers have up their sleeves."

"How so?"

"The Alliance briefed all N7 operatives before you returned from Bahak on what we knew about the Reapers. Nothing, absolutely nothing in that briefing told us about anything like this happening. And that briefing was pretty comprehensive. Liara had a lot on the Reapers before they arrived."

"She's good like that." Shepard's eye was drawn back to the Reaper Destroyer sitting beside the Shroud, cables snaking into the tower to deliver its deadly cargo. CDEM orbital stations had said that, if the cloud covered Tuchanka's surface, any rain would cause any living thing to die within minutes. That had to be stopped, fast. "Come on, let's see how long this will take."

The pair made their way over to the lead scout, a smaller-than-average krogan that still towered over Shepard and Naylor. The krogan explained the obvious – the road was out. Naylor raised a hand to his faceplate in annoyance, and Shepard cut to the chase, asking when the road would be ready. It was a matter of urgency, and the clock in her helmet telling the Commander how long it would be until the turian airstrike was already down into the last minute. A roar of an explosion shook the entire area, and a huge slab of concrete twenty metres long smashed into the road, covering the gap.

Unfortunately, time was against them. The turian fighters soared overhead, ignoring Shepard's calls for them to abandon their strike. Their fighters were locked on a specific path towards the Destroyer, and were unable to pull away before the attack was delivered. A ripple of torpedoes and missiles soared towards the Reaper, joined a split second later by the chatter of mass accelerator cannons barraging the Destroyer's kinetic barriers with shots. It was ultimately a failure, and very quickly two of the twelve fighters were taken out by the thanix cannon on the front of the Reaper. A third was clipped by a second shot from the thanix cannon, veering quickly towards the bridge and completely out of control.

"Wrex, get going!" The lead tomkahs drove forward quickly, three getting across the gap before the fighter smashed into the rest, the vehicles having stalled on the bridge in the attempt to make a quick getaway. Shepard and Naylor dove into a tunnel in front of them, revealed by the exit of Wrex's tomkah, as the carnage behind them bore out its course. One tomkah, flung into the air by the impact of the fighter, crashed into the temporary bridge, sending the concrete slab and the wrecked surface of the bridge below it tumbling to the floor, hundreds of feet below.

"FUCK!"

"Quiet up, Lieutenant. I can't get a hold of Wrex." Shepard pulled herself to her feet, dragging Naylor with her in one hand. The tunnel they were now forced to take was dark and foreboding, made only slightly better by the stabs of light from the pair's flashlights on their omni-tools. "Let's focus on getting out of here first, okay?"

* * *

"_Shepard, get going! That shuttle can't stay there for long!"_

"_Kalros territorial instincts confirmed!"_ Naylor and Shepard were running, trying to go faster than they had ever run in their lives. Wreav's tomkah, one of the three that had survived the carnage on the bridge, had already been drawn into a sinkhole by the thresher maw, but the survivors were trying to claw their way back up the sides to safety. Wrex's tomkah had tried to get into a safe position to pick them up from, away from Kalros, but the thresher maw had chased them off too, along with Naylor's team in the third surviving tomkah. Finding a place where picking the pair up would be safe from the monster of all thresher maws was impossible, and Naylor had suggested finding their way to the top of the ruined tower they had been standing in and having Cortez extract them in a Kodiak.

It had almost been the perfect plan. But Kalros was huge, and very soon they realised that, after the first acid shot had barely missed the Kodiak, the extraction had to be quick. The pair were running up the stairs, less than a single flight from the top, but the thresher maw was close to breaking up out of the ground and swallowing the Kodiak whole.

"Come on! Come on!"

"I'm fucking running as fast as I can! Let up, Commander!"

"I don't want to die to a damn thresher maw, Lieutenant. Now go!" The final flight of stairs mercifully gave way to an open floor. At the open end was Cortez and the Kodiak, Khan already waving them on and into the shuttle. Behind him stood Liara, clad in her armour, ready to catch either of the pair with a biotic pull and safely haul them inside the shuttle if needs be. Shepard made it first, crashing to the floor in her heavy battlesuit following a leap of faith towards the open door. Cortez was able to avoid the rocking effect of the fall enough for Naylor to make his jump, but the Kodiak had swayed too far away from the edge of the tower. Naylor wouldn't make it.

As the Lieutenant made the jump, Liara threw Khan out of the way, summoning her biotics and all the strength she could muster. As Naylor reached the top of his jump, and at the point when he realised at that point that he couldn't make it, Liara threw herself out of the shuttle to everyone's surprise. Tackling into Naylor, her biotics flared as she negated their combined mass as much as she could, the pair floating to the ground slowly. Reacting quickly, Cortez positioned the Kodiak below them, rotating sideways to pick the pair up mid-fall as Liara's strength started to fade and the pace of their drop quickened. Naylor took the brunt of the fall as they slammed into the Kodiak's passenger compartment and the closed door on the other side of the shuttle, the Lieutenant twisting in mid-air so that he was between Liara's unarmoured face and the harsh metal surface of the door. He swore loudly into his helmet, his radio off, as he felt something pop in his spine.

Shepard only spoke when Cortez had levelled out, and Naylor and Liara had gently rolled down the side of the shuttle's interior to the floor. "Shit, what the hell was that Liara?"

"The Lieutenant would never have made it. I had to do something."

"You could have pulled him in with your biotics!"

"He was too far into the jump, Shepard. You cannot defeat gravity like that." Sensing that she was getting nowhere, Shepard let Liara win the conversation. They were still in a tight situation, only protected from the Reaper by the ruins they were flying through in pursuit of Wrex and the tomkahs, and arguing about something that had saved Naylor's life was not a good thing to be doing. As they flew towards the Shroud facility, Eve came over the radio to explain the plan for finally defeating the Reaper. Shepard blanched at it, but the plan was sound – draw Kalros to the site and have her attack the Reaper. Synthetic AI versus natural predator. It had the makings of an extranet video written all over it. And Shepard was not the least bit happy about how it had to be done.

Cortez gave them the signal to exit after a few minutes of skimming low and close to the ground. The Kodiak was moving quickly, barely above the ground to avoid the Reaper's fire, and that forced Shepard to get creative. She jumped out, slowing her biotics with her fall and rolling as she hit the ground. Liara grabbed onto Naylor's arm and ran towards the exit, pulling the same trick as before and slowing the pair's fall with her biotics before they split and smashed into the ground separately. The tomkahs were parked ahead, Wrex, Mordin and both Shepard's team and Naylor's team all out and ready for the next phase of the mission.

"Mordin, what's the situation?"

"Reaper still making approach to Shroud impossible. However, laboratory is close by. Eve is already there, and can finish synthesising the cure for release." The salarian almost took off, before quickly turning back to the commander, whispering in her ear. "Eve's vitals struggling. Confident she will survive, however."

"Good. Take some of Naylor's marines in case the Reapers make an appearance."

"Will do, Shepard." Mordin left with three of Naylor's marines in tow, sent quickly by the Lieutenant in order to speed up the finishing of this chapter in the war.

"Naylor, take Liara and the rest of your guys and hold a perimeter around the lab. Cover our backs. Wrex, you'll hate me for this but I want you helping them out."

"Aye, Shepard. We'll take care of any Reapers for you."

"Cheers, Wrex. Javik and the rest of you, you're with me. We're going up the centre."

"Straight towards the Reaper, Shepard?"

"Yeah, Garrus. Only way. We get these maw hammers activated and draw in Kalros. Now go!" As Shepard's team jumped up and over the wall and into the confines of the ancient arena, Naylor's team took up defensive positions in the ruins. Wrex suddenly saw a group of Brutes charging towards the team, and without warning, charged towards them with a roar on his lips as he went.

"THIS IS MY PLANET!"

* * *

Shepard slumped to the ground as she watched the Shroud go up in flames, the metal structure collapsing under its own weight as the explosions tearing through it destroyed its supports and foundations. Mordin had been right at the top of the tower, in the control centre. It had been the only way, he had said, to do it. Shepard muttered his last words over and over again as she let a tear fall in regret. Liara walked up to her, placing a comforting hand on the Spectre's shoulder. Not even Earth had hit her as hard as losing a friend like that. Around her, krogan rejoiced as the genophage cure blanketed the planet's surface, affecting every one the particles of the cure touched. But the victory felt hollow, it felt wrong, as the tower's remnants slammed to the floor in angry protest against nature.

"Someone else might have gotten it wrong."

* * *

**A/N:** I've just written twelve thousand words in four or five days. Three years ago I'd have complained at having to write a 2,000 word essay in a month for GCSE English. How times change, huh...

I swear I've lost track of time. It's still September, right?


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: **I've found an extra reason to be happy while posting this chapter - the overall story for Galaxy at War has now reached a hundred thousand words of finished chapters. To some of you that may not be much, but given how barely back in June I struggled to get out a chapter of over a thousand words in my version of the Citadel DLC, this is actually a fantastic achievement in such a short space of time as well!

A second but smaller jump in time (only skipping fifteen days instead of thirty!). I would have included the Tuchanka mission in the story, which was next in line in the story, but I never found a way to make that work or just sound in any way remotely good. So given how I'm skipping that particular mission, guess what's up next…

* * *

**Day Fifty Three. Approach to the Citadel space station, Serpent Nebula.**

Naylor was thrown against the side of the Kodiak as the inertial dampers found themselves being completely overloaded, Khan pulling an extreme turn to fling the Kodiak around a blind corner at a speed far too high for the poor shuttle to cope with. On board, Naylor's team, now with only ten marines from its original twelve, hung on for dear life as the breakneck charge to C-Sec's headquarters continued. Following the mission on Grissom Academy, Naylor had not had a chance to recruit a replacement for the late Symonds in the days between their return to the Citadel and now, while Cleveland's shoulder injury had put her out of action for two weeks. She had been recovering from her injuries on Nova Station, the Alliances' temporary HQ hidden in an isolated system in the Argos Rho star cluster with no Mass Relays. She had been due to return to normal service a few days back, but before the Normandy was due to pick her up, Mordin Solus had announced he had finally finished a cure for the Genophage.

And so, three days ago, the krogan were formally brought into the war with the genophage cured and their relations with the turians at an all time high. Under the leadership of Urdnot Wrex and Urdnot Bakara, the krogan were rallying hundreds of thousands of soldiers to be transported to Palaven. The first of those were sent barely a day after the cure was deployed, and yet more Krogan were due to be deployed all over turian space in the coming days, including substantial forces being sent to the Volus' homeworld of Irune and some of the other embattled Turian colonies in the Aethon Cluster. It was the second game changer that Shepard had brought about in the war, following the negotiation of a settlement with Councillor Tevos fifty days ago. But the victory was to be short lived. While approaching the relay from the Krogan DMZ into the Serpent Nebula, Shepard had been contacted by Councillor Valern with worrying news. Shepard had made all due haste for the Citadel afterwards, but the worrying lack of contact with the docking authorities had left her in a panic and quickly deploying to C-Sec's headquarters on the station after she got in contact with her former associate, Thane Krios.

Shepard's team had made it to the headquarters a few minutes before, but disturbingly they had found Cerberus forces swarming all over the facility with C-Sec's officers being routed. Commander Bailey had been wounded in the fighting, and Naylor's unit would be thrown into combat once more against the terrorist group to make up the loss of the support that Shepard had been planning on from the decimated C-Sec. While there were reports of fighting coming in from all over the Citadel, the majority of the Cerberus forces seemed to be clustered in the Presidium and the junctions with the five ward arms, as well as holding the docks and other sectors that were instrumental to the running of the station. It was so very similar to the chaos of the surprise attack by the Geth three years ago, both times the attack coming from inside the defensive perimeter held by the Citadel Fleet. But this time Shepard was quicker off the mark, and the Normandy was on scene at the station barely an hour into the attack.

"Shepard, this is Naylor. We're inside Presidium airspace and are almost at C-Sec headquarters. We'll be dropping off in a few seconds."

"_Got it. We've got Bailey here but he's wounded badly."_

"We'll have medical gear ready to go as soon as we're down. Any reports on the Council or the other diplomats?"

"_Nothing yet, Lieutenant, but we're working on that."_ Khan pulled the Kodiak to a halt, the shuttle hovering for a few seconds before settling down onto the landing pad. "_Hmm, that's a n__ice shuttle by the way."_

"It's a pretty decent ride." Naylor heard Khan scoff from the cockpit as the door to the crew compartment slid open, the marines from his team dropping out of the shuttle and running up towards where Shepard's team was waiting by the door into C-Sec's headquarters. Liara and Shepard were kneeling in front of the wounded Bailey, trying to assess the severity of the wound, while Javik, Vega, Garrus and EDI were keeping watch for Cerberus reinforcements. Naylor nodded towards Roberts, the sentinel running forward to treat Bailey's wounds as the only marine in his team with real first aid training. The Lieutenant and Takeida moved up towards where Shepard was crouching beside Bailey, the Spectre standing as they approached. "What's our plan, Commander?"

"We are here looking for the Councillor Valern. He was due to be here meeting the Executor in his office here at C-Sec's headquarters, but we've had no contact from inside the building or from the Councillor himself."

"So we're going in blind?" Shepard looked at the wounded leader of C-Sec and motioned for Naylor to walk over and away from the entrance to the headquarters with her.

"Not exactly. I have an old friend moving through the main entrance to the facility. His name is Thane Krios, a drell assassin." The commander spoke in hushed tones, taking another look at Bailey only to see him slowly getting up with Takeida's help. "Sorry I couldn't brief you on this, but it's all been a surprise. Thane's been feeding us information about the state of play on the Presidium since we made radio contact with him."

"How is it looking?"

"Not good at all. According to Thane, Cerberus forces are in complete control of all the docks up and down the station and they hold most of, if not all of the access points to the Presidium, both for skycars and the elevators. C-Sec is responding in full force, but Cerberus has flights of A-61s patrolling everywhere while C-Sec only has panda cars in the air at the moment. The Citadel fleet was been caught unawares by the attack, but they're preparing to deploy fighters, gunships and shuttles onto the Wards."

"Sounds like a shit storm."

"You have no idea."

"Commander!" Bailey interrupted the conversation, shouting over from where he was now standing by the doors to C-Sec's headquarters. Shepard ran over, joined by Naylor and all of the members of Shepard's team as the C-Sec commander opened the locked door with his high-level override. Pointing to Warwick and Anning and then to the area outside the headquarters building, Naylor followed Shepard, her team and Commander Bailey inside the facility as the two infiltrators set themselves up and remained on guard outside. Takeida and Roberts took the other five members of the marine detail and held the corridor behind the entrance, while Bailey limped his way to the main desk.

"Bailey, what were you doing here anyway?"

"Getting my ass shot off trying to retake headquarters. Cerberus took it in the first push." The commander sat down at the desk, quickly pulling up a new window on the terminal there and typing furiously. "Until things change here, everyone in C-Sec is flying blind."

"And what of the Council?"

"They split up when the first shots were fired, Staff Lieutenant, but they're moving towards a safe house on the Presidium with their guards." Naylor breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. "I'll know more in a minute once I've got access. You guys should catch a few while I'm at it though." Shepard nodded to her team, giving the members a chance to relax on the seats arranged around the entrance area. Naylor sat himself down and removed his helmet, running a hand through his hair and nodding as Liara sat down next to him. The asari was visibly drained of energy, having been providing biotic support for Shepard's team in the few minutes before. Naylor removed an energy bar from one of his armour's compartments and held it out towards Liara, who grabbed at it quickly and began devouring it quickly.

"I thought Shepard didn't like taking you on missions?"

"My guess is that she may now be thinking otherwise." Liara's voice came through her munching on the energy bar, and Naylor had to avoid smiling at the sound of her translator struggling with the added sounds of her chewing on high energy food.

"And it's not to do with the fact that we're outnumbered and fighting a battle on the streets of the Citadel?"

Liara wolfed down the last part of the bar before replying, gulping audibly as she polished off the last of the food. "A part of me hopes that you are not right and that I'm here because of my skill instead of being another body, so to speak."

"You want to be putting your life on the line?"

"No. But I don't _just_ want to help with information." Naylor chuckled, shaking his head. "I was trained by commandos, Lieutenant. I know a biotic trick or two."

"I am sure that you do." Naylor and Liara looked on as Shepard waited for Bailey to finish his work on the terminal. When the C-Sec commander finally spoke up, all the team members raised themselves from their seats and made their way back over to the main desk.

"Here we go. Hacked C-Sec network access, courtesy of Cerberus. They have control of the main communication channels, but I can set up a new one." The officer's hands worked quickly over the terminal, lines of commands cropping up on the holographic screen. "Without this my people are without a plan and without a chance."

"That's better than nothing." Though his words said otherwise, Naylor could tell that Garrus was relieved at the improvement in the chance that Cerberus now had.

"Oh, hello." Shepard leant in close to the terminal, trying to read what Bailey had found. "A warning from Councillor Valern. He's supposed to be here meeting the executor at the moment. 'Be on guard, the likelihood of betrayal from within is high.' Nothing else."

"We got a message from the councillor when we began our return from Tuchanka. He mentioned something along similar lines."

"Usually if one of the Councillors meets the executor then someone big is going to be prosecuted. Looks like that someone had Cerberus friends."

"The Councillor mentioned Udina!" Garrus raised his voice, anger filling his tone. "But that's insane. Why would the Councillor even be suspecting Udina? And how does Udina even have this kind of pull with Cerberus?"

"The only one who could answer that kind of question is Valern himself."

"And he's currently inside with Cerberus forces."

"Until an hour ago this was the most secure place in the station. We need to get the Councillor out of here. He has got to know more about who's behind this."

Garrus stepped up to the desk, pointing to a part of the facility that had been drawn up on his omni-tool "He could be in the executor's office. It's a fairly easy position to defend."

"We're on it." The Spectre began making her move towards where Naylor's team was holding the corridor behind the desk when Bailey interrupted her.

"Shepard, just a second." The commander began tapping away on his omni-tool, Shepard's own omni-tool's interface lighting up at the same time. "Now we can talk by omni-tool." Shepard nodded, waving her team forward. Naylor took his place at the lead of his marines, the group holding position behind Shepard's team as they moved deeper into the C-Sec facility. Once they were out of earshot of Bailey, Shepard opened her omni-tool and made an audio-only connection on it.

"Thane, did you get all that?"

"Yes. I'm going to the executor's office now, but running is difficult." Shepard noted the laboured sound of the drell's voice as her team moved through a short corridor, pausing slightly before the door in front of them opened up automatically as they approached, revealing a pair of assault troopers in the path of the team. One of the troopers turned as he heard the sound of the door opening, but Shepard quickly fired a pistol round into the trooper's head. Garrus, with his sniper rifle drawn, quickly took out the second, but Cerberus troops were flooding in from the left-hand side. Naylor and his team surged forward and cleared the hallway, the lieutenant firing his Mattock steadily as the marines provided cover fire for Shepard's team, who were moving up quickly under the hail of gunfire.

Javik got the nod from Shepard, priming his biotics and smashing a hand to the floor, sending nearby Cerberus soldiers flying and ripping the shields away from guardian troopers. The devastating effect of the nova made the Cerberus troopers easy prey, and gave Shepard the chance to follow up with a shockwave, hurling the troopers from the floor just as they began to regain their feet and into the walls across from where Shepard stood with a smug smile on her face. Garrus and James picked the survivors off one by one, disciplined bursts of assault rifle fire felling the troopers before they got a chance to recover, but were quickly forced back into cover as bullets stitched a path across the cover they were standing behind.

"Turret!" Shepard's cry came from the front, the distinctive whine of the automated machine gun cutting over the sparking of destroyed holographic displays and the crackle of flames.

Naylor called Atkins and Roberts up from his team, ducking into the cover of a central support pillar beside Shepard. Nodding towards the commander and raising his hand in front of one of his eyes, the lieutenant silently verbalised his plan for the turret. Shepard nodded, diving to one side as Naylor called his omni-shield up. The silicon surface melted the bullets that almost instantly smashed into it as he rose out of the cover he had been behind, the flash-forged shield superheated to over a thousand Kelvin and deadly to the touch. Roberts followed suit behind him, staying in the cover of the shield while Atkins, his Revenant deployed on its bipod, opened fire along with Garrus and James towards the turret. The turret's shields sparked before falling from the gunfire, and Roberts ducked round the side of the shield to hurl a warp field at the now defenceless turret. As the sentinel targeted the turret, Shepard ducked out of her own cover, focussing on the turret and pulling at it with her biotics as soon as she saw the blue flash from the warp hitting the target. The lash detonated the warp field instantly, the turret smashed apart by the detonation.

The firing immediately subsided, Naylor's marines immediately checking the dead Cerberus bodies for thermal clips, grenades and other useful equipment while Shepard's group moved forward through the C-Sec offices. "Commander, over here." Shepard jogged over to where James was standing, the marine looking at the body of one of the C-Sec officers killed in the first waves of the attack. "This guy got it in the back of the head. An inside job."

"The same as Mars with Dr Core. Cerberus likes their sleeper agents." The commander moved on, her team clearing another room while Naylor's marines held their positions and checked for more Cerberus troopers in the area. The Spectre called them through as the last of the Cerberus troopers was taken out, but Naylor grimaced as the deluge of water from the room's sprinklers rained down on his armour with his helmet off. "Naylor, we'll need to take an elevator up to the executor's office from here."

"Got it. Do you want my marines to follow your team up?"

"Yes and no. Take three marines out onto the Presidium and try and do what you can to help what remains of C-Sec on the ring and retake the main access points."

"Only four of us?"

"I'll be taking the rest of the team up the elevator here. As soon as we've found Councillor Valern, I'll send the rest of your team down to you in a patrol car or something. Oh, and if you run into the Council, they become your new priority. Get them to somewhere safe and keep it that way."

"Got it, Commander. Takeida, I'll take Roberts, Clarke and Atkins. You have Sara, Conway and Wallace. Stick with Shepard, get the job done and get everyone back safely."

"Of course, sir." Naylor slapped the marine on the back as his took his marines and hung back from the elevator. Shepard and her six team members piled into the elevator, being joined by Takeida's team as soon as Naylor had finished dividing his marines between the two groups. The elevator doors closed, leaving Naylor and his squad waiting for the elevator to return to pick them up. Roberts and Atkins stood guard over the corridor while Clarke pulled his helmet off, taking a few deep breaths. Seeing Naylor look at him, the vanguard looked back towards the lieutenant and shrugged. "I sweat easily, sir."

"I was thinking you were exhausted, Corporal." When Clarke didn't respond with one of his usual quips, Naylor leant in and pressed his questioning. "Something on your mind?"

"Just thinking about things."

"Anything in particular?"

"How this all feels like déjà vu. I mean, Shepard only just stopped the geth from taking over the Citadel three years ago, and now it all seems to be back to square one."

"I agree. This shouldn't be happening. But we need to stop it, nonetheless." The elevator doors opened before them, and Naylor motioned with his hand for the marines to get into the elevator. "Come on. We have a job to do. Hopefully then we can put this all behind us."

* * *

Garrus led the way into the next part of C-Sec's headquarters as Shepard's enlarged team exited the elevator one by one, hampered by the malfunctioning doors on the outside of the elevator. The turian was obviously undergoing a lot of stress, visible in how tightly he gripped the pistol grip on his Viper sniper rifle. "Richfield, LaMonte? Are you there?"

"Hey Scars, you'll wake up the whole station."

"If the gunfire hasn't woken them up already, James, I sure won't." Shepard had walked on ahead as Garrus checked a few of the dead bodies. The room ahead was riddled with bullet holes, and the bodies of C-Sec officers could be found slumped across the floor every few metres. It reminded the Spectre of the scenes that she had seen inside the Mars facility, and that wasn't a good sign. The door ahead of her was malfunctioning, the holographic display a vibrant red but the motors were rapidly opening and closing the door, fire safety overrides fighting against the lockdowns that Cerberus had flooded into the system. A side office led her, Liara and Garrus around the side, but very nearly taking them face to face with two assault troopers, standing over the freshly dead body of one of their sleeper agents.

Shepard nodded towards Garrus, who began systematically firing shots from his Viper sniper rifle, keeping the pair's heads down as Shepard biotically charged through the corridor, slamming the Cerberus soldiers into the next available wall as she shot across the corridor in a blue blur. Liara formed a singularity over their heads, allowing Shepard to calmly plant her shotgun in the chest of each of the soldiers and pull the trigger. There was no flinch from the Spectre – every one of the Cerberus forces that she would face on the Citadel today, whether initially willing to join the organisation or not, was a willing slave to the Illusive Man's ideals, and anyone in league with that monster deserved to die. James and Takeida's squad walked up past the Spectre, intent on moving through to the next room in the headquarters and clearing it to give the rest of the team a break, but the Spectre joined them anyway.

Over the communications channel set up by Bailey, Naylor sent a signal that slightly worried the Commander – his team was peeling off from their initial mission to begin searching for the Council, worried about the fact that they weren't responding to any communications. Aided by Commander Bailey, who was using all his available skills to re-hijack control over some of the security cameras on the Presidium to home in on the Council's whereabouts, the team was proceeding down through the C-Sec offices to reach the ground floor of the Presidium. Thankfully though, the latest news on the situation of the Councillors was that they had all been safely escorted from the embassy quarter to a special safe house in the Financial District by their guards, but Cerberus had latched on to their location. At that point in time, the three councillors were still alive, but their guards were either dead or seriously wounded and their safety was now in the care of two Spectres, thankfully on the Citadel and able to react to the rapidly changing situation.

The next corridor opened out into a C-Sec ready room, somewhere where armed response officers were able to relax before the next inevitable call-out to action. Leading from the front, Shepard spread her team out, searching through the area as a looped broadcast, by of all people Al-Jilani, was being belted out over the holographic television. Garrus led her and James up to the Executor's office, the office being moved up from the floor of the Presidium during the renovations after the geth attack, but once the door opened, there was no sign of Councillor Valern. Takeida's team had moved on to check the ranks of C-Sec patrol cars, while Liara, Javik and EDI took a look through some of the other offices down on the lower level.

"Ready, Shepard." James hit the hologram with a backhand of his fist, pulling away from the door as Shepard and Garrus ran in, weapons drawn. The Spectre pulled up as she saw the dead bodies of the C-Sec Executor, Venari Pallin, and two salarians dressed in C-Sec uniforms. All were riddled with bullet holes, Pallin's chest covered in blue blood while the salarians were both shot in the back repeatedly. "Shot from close distance. Damn Cerberus. I always liked Pallin. He was always a good choice for executor, challenging the Council when he believed that C-Sec could benefit from a bit of negotiation."

"Didn't he also stop your investigation into Saren, Garrus?"

"Yeah, but he had his reasons. Challenging the council he is reporting to benefit the entire station is one thing, stalling them on the matter of one of their Spectres is another. I don't blame him – we killed Saren either way."

Shepard let Garrus be, opening up her omni-tool and connecting through the Bailey, still back at the desk where Shepard and the rest of her force had entered C-Sec's headquarters. "Bailey, they got Pallin and two of his co-workers."

"_Damn. Alright, keep searching but unless you see the Councillor's body, don't rule him out yet." _Garrus looked down through the window overlooking the ready area, suddenly seeing the flash of a deactivating tactical cloak as one of the chairs in the mess area moved from its position as if by an invisible force. Valern stood up, dusting himself off before moving towards the executor's office. Shepard ran over to where the turian was standing and watched on, smiling behind her helmet.

"We've found him. He looks unharmed."

"_Good. Get him somewhere safe!" _Neither noticed the black clad figure as he dropped to the floor in front of the councillor.

And when Shepard did, all she could say was "Shit."

* * *

Naylor's team barrelled through the last few corridors on the ground level of the C-Sec HQ, bursting out into the mad crossfire on the floor of the Presidium, close to the Shalmar Plaza on the Presidium Commons. Atkins ran ahead, dropping into cover behind a bench and sighting down the barrel of his Revenant. Naylor joined him, while Clarke and Roberts dove into the cover of a downed C-Sec patrol car. The repetitive thud of the Revenant firing gave Naylor the reassurance that Cerberus wasn't in amongst the civilians or C-Sec forces. Resting his elbow on the back of the bench, Naylor sighted down the scope on his Mattock and began firing at the Cerberus forces he could see.

"Roberts, there's a squad of assault troopers close to an X3M in the main taxi rank."

"I see them. I can't do anything with my biotics from this range, though."

"Alright. Circle round with Clarke across the lake and draw their fire. Atkins, when I give the signal hit their shields with as good fire as you can."

"What about you, sir?"

"Skycar." With but a nod from the lieutenant, Naylor's marines went to work, Atkins reloading his thermal clip and ducking down into cover again. Clarke and Roberts began moving to the left, sprinting out of their cover and darting between the detritus of the ongoing combat. Naylor went right, omni-shield activated but hanging down at his side as he ran from cover to cover. The range of fifty metres was reduced to twenty five in a matter of seconds, and Naylor sent the signal to his marines to start a diversion. Biotics rippled throughout the line of Cerberus soldiers as Roberts hurled warp fields at her targets, the effects magnified when she combined her talents with Clarke's telekinetic pulls to create devastating explosions as the dark energy fields destabilised. Atkins opened up with his Revenant, sending tracers streaming across the Presidium floor.

Naylor brought his omni-tool up and activated his customised 'burst incinerate' program, four small metal slugs instantly being flash-forged from silicon carbide stored in the device's minifacturer and superheated until they glowed white hot. Lining his right arm up with the skycar, Naylor fired the entire burst into the highly flammable fuel cells at the bottom of the vehicle. The skycar exploded after the fourth shot hit the target, the explosion tearing through the Cerberus soldiers, unprotected from the detonation behind their cover. As he focussed through the scope of his now raised Mattock, Naylor could see several of the Cerberus soldiers flailing rapidly as the flames consumed them. A few tried to dive out of their cover and into the water of the Presidium's lakes, but instead were met by instant sniper fire from C-Sec sharpshooters high up the sides of the Presidium and by fire from Atkins' Revenant.

"Clarke, get in there and hit them with your biotics where it _really _hurts. Atkins, give him some cover but I want you sticking with Roberts. Roberts, get moving towards those C-Sec troopers and give them what you can spare."

"On it!"

"Providing cover!"

"What about you, LT?"

"I need to make a call, Roberts. I'll just be a minute." Naylor ducked down behind cover as the sound of gunfire in the immediate vicinity receded, replaced mostly by the dull thunder of gunfire around him and the crackle of Clarke's biotics as he despatched the surviving Cerberus soldiers from the explosion. Opening the channel on his omni-tool, Naylor connected himself into the shared channel Shepard had assigned the Normandy teams for the mission. "Shepard? Commander?" There was no response, only what seemed like mild static and pops across the signal. Cursing inaudibly, Naylor waited, though a few seconds later he realised that the Spectre's radio was still transmitting.

"_That remains to be seen."_

"_No, it's Udina! He's staging a coup!" _Naylor froze as he heard the muffled words from the salarian councillor. _"He's got t__he other councillors now and he i__s going to hand them over to Cerberus!" _Naylor zoned out from the conversation, focussing on the important point that Valern had said. If he was right, and the salarian councillor often was, then at this very moment Sparatus and the Council's guards were running into a trap. But more importantly to the lieutenant, _Tevos_ was walking into that trap alongside them. And if they got into Cerberus' hands, then Naylor had a good guess as to what would happen – if she was lucky, Tevos would probably get out relatively unharmed, simply blackmailed or tortured enough to force pro-Cerberus measures through the Council and to pass measures to allow the terrorist organisation free movement throughout Council space. If, and Naylor feared this option the most, she was unlucky, she could be horrendously injured, killed, or, and this was the worst of all of them, converted into some hideous asari version of a husk by the madman that was the Illusive Man. From what Naylor knew and had seen, that madman was easily capable of that and worse.

"_Ten__ on __one__ pal. It's over."_ Naylor hadn't realised that the comm. channel was still open, the lieutenant already running as fast as he was able to round up his marines and get them moving forward in their chase of the Council. He didn't know where the Councillors were, or where Udina was planning taking them, but if he had any luck, he could intercept them before the Council got anywhere close to where Udina ultimately wanted to take them. But it was the unknown person's laugh and the final words that he said over the communications channel before it was cut that were the words that haunted Naylor the most.

"_Now it gets fun."_

* * *

**A/N:** That last bit about being turned into an asari form of a husk is basically my nod to one of the most brilliant and nerve-wracking stories I've ever read – OriginalAlcy's Catalyst of Fate. I love that story so much, and I'm so looking forward to seeing how the sequel, Architect of Fate, goes as well.

Of course, I will say that I have no plans of turning Tevos into a Banshee or an asari version of a husk/cannibal/marauder. I may have just gone and spoilt some of the tension but it's because I'm going away on holiday from Friday. I know that there will be wi-fi at the first place I'm going to, but I don't know whether my battered laptop will survive the trip to where I'm going or not. If it does, expect another chapter on like Monday or something. If not, I'm sorry! The second place definitely doesn't have wi-fi, though, so you'll have to wait for a week or so after the next chapter until the next one. Then again, it probably won't make any difference to your lives at all...


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: **I'M BACK! Yes, for real this time. I've got all my stories back in action, I have a disc enclosure coming on Monday if there's anything I've missed, and I've dragged myself away from playing Company of Heroes 2 (on a new laptop that actually works properly!) to upload a chapter that I wish I had uploaded before my old laptop died. Then again, I couldn't have forseen the problems that occurred, so I apologise. Anyway, here's chapter sixteen, the final part of the Citadel coup.

* * *

Shepard's skycar crashed to the ground, bouncing once before skidding to a halt. The Spectre kicked the doors open, the normal mechanisms fried by the landing and out of action. Javik, EDI and Garrus rolled out of the skycar after her, dusting themselves off and checking their surroundings. _"Shepard, my instruments say your car stopped."_

"Yeah, we're on foot now. We crashed a few levels above the Presidium floor after the assassin speared our frontal thrusters with his sword. Any luck contacting the Council?"

"_Negative. Their guards are dead, but I can still get vital signs from their transponders."_

"Where are they headed?"

"_A shuttle pad above Shalmar Plaza. Udina is with them. If that assassin gets within range of them, this could all be over very quickly."_

"We're on our way." A Cerberus Kodiak hovered into view in front of them, the side door opening to reveal two of the Cerberus assassin-type soldiers jumping out and arresting their fall with both their jump packs and with biotics. A squad of Assault Troopers readied themselves to follow, but the Kodiak was shot out of the sky. A C-Sec gunship swung past, fire from its chain gun slicing through the barriers and armour protecting the hostile shuttle's drive core. Without power, the shuttle fell to its demise on the floor below. "Bailey, we've got C-Sec heavy support on scene now. Do you know where Lieutenant Naylor and his squad are?"

"_No, but I've sent them the same coordinates to the location of the Council. By my account, they exited C-Sec HQ opposite Shalmar Plaza a few minutes ago." _More of the assassins, as well as the snipers began arriving on the scene, indiscriminately killing civilians who entered their line of fire. Javik channelled his biotic energy into a single, powerful blast, slamming a trio of the snipers into a low ceiling and smashing them to the floor immediately afterwards. Garrus' sniper boomed, firing repeatedly in a deadly duel with a pair of the snipers on balconies across from where Shepard's team fought. The squad ran forward quickly, vaulting across the gaps between the sections of the floor before being attacked again by Cerberus forces.

"Bailey, Cerberus are throwing soldiers in our way. They're trying to slow us down. Where are the Council?" Shepard funnelled her biotics into a single punch, shattering the sword of one of the Phantoms and sending the wielder flying down to the Presidium floor below. She then began to combine her biotics with Javik's, the prothean channelling dark energy onto targets for Shepard to detonate, the explosion tearing through barriers and shields and allowing EDI to incinerate the now vulnerable targets.

"_They're approaching Shalmar Plaza on foot. Everything looks fine, and Lieutenant Naylor's team are there already."_

* * *

"This is Shalmar Plaza! The Council are here somewhere!"

Naylor sprinted down towards the door in front of them, Roberts, Clarke and Atkins at his back. The three marines checked the corners that Naylor didn't care about, the lieutenant focussing solely on making it to the Council before Cerberus got their chance. The marines came to the end of the corridor they were barrelling through, finding three paths through the open ground they found themselves arriving at. A quick cursory glance told Naylor that there was no sign of the Council, and worse his radio was malfunctioning.

"Spread out and don't get held up by Cerberus. You know who we're looking for." Clarke went left, taking the lower but wider of the three paths while Roberts and Atkins taking the right, moving through behind an elevator shaft through to the dead-end of a residential block. That left Naylor alone and in the open space that was Shalmar Plaza itself. Drawing his Mattock carefully, the lieutenant crept through the plaza, checking the stores for signs of Cerberus forces or the Council's party.

"Spread out and shoot anything that moves."

"What about the Council?"

"Echo Team said they saw them somewhere around here, but they went silent a few minutes ago. Kill their guards but if the Council get in your sights, by all means shoot them but don't kill them. The asari bitch's probably a biotic, so neutralise her first. The turian will probably try to resist no matter what happens. Knock him out" A squad of assault troopers jumped down from their shuttle above the plaza, weapons raised and looking about. Clarke had hidden from their sight, but, still visible to Naylor, signalled that he had a cluster grenade primed and ready to throw. Naylor nodded, lining up a shot on the closest of the assault troopers, steadying his breath. He fired, the shot clipping the bottom of the soldier's helmet and ricocheting down into his neck. Clarke's grenade took out two of the remaining troopers, the biotic explosions sending them flying into a wall and snapping bones.

"We've got casualties!" The squad's centurion screamed into his radio channel as a fourth trooper was taken out, three bullet holes in his chest armour and red blood spilling out from the wounds. The Cerberus soldier didn't notice as Naylor ran up in the blind spot created behind the dying assault trooper. As the body slumped to the floor, Naylor rounded the body, omni-blade extended over his right arm. The centurion tried to grab at his shock baton but was too slow. An omni-blade speared into his foot, prompting a cry of agony from the trooper, before Naylor activated a second omni-blade over his left, slicing it up through the inside of the Centurion's left leg. A final punch to the head sent the trooper to the floor, leaving Naylor standing before the corpses of the five dead members of the Cerberus squad.

Clarke ran over to where Naylor stood, checking his shotgun before storing it on his back. "We're clear on the bottom level LT. No sign there, and evidently no sign here."

"_Roberts here, Lieutenant. No sign of the Council hiding in the residential areas yet. We're continuing onto the second part of the area now."_

"Keep me posted." Naylor and Clarke continued searching through the plaza, but there was no sign at all of the Council. Bailey had sent them a message a few minutes before, that the Council was heading towards a shuttle pad near Shalmar plaza, the same sort of shuttle pad he and Tevos had escaped the geth from three years before. This time, though, the Council was in a far greater danger. Udina's coup was raging around them, the battles between C-Sec and the Cerberus forces intensifying as the latter tried to solidify their slim advantage in the Presidium. But C-Sec had brought in heavy equipment in the form of Alliance A-61 Mantis gunships, and as Cerberus were forced to pull their own gunships out in fear of losing them altogether, C-Sec had control of the artificial skies once more.

Naylor kept moving through the area, but suddenly pulled up before he passed a door, hearing distorted voices and a few punitive cries from the storage room that was in the shop he was checking out. Waving Clarke forward to continue checking the plaza, Naylor tore off his helmet and pressed an ear against the door, able to hear better through the metal in that way than with the auditory boosters that the helmet could use. The voices, easily recognisable as those emitted by the helmets worn by Cerberus soldiers, were far clearer now, and painfully, so were the cries.

"Stop struggling asari! You, keep the bitch restrained."

"How?

"Tie her hands, knock her out, stuff something down her throat – I don't know. She's an asari, doesn't deserve any niceties. Just don't kill her. Our orders are to take her alive and we're still waiting for Foxtrot to arrive with the anaesthetics and Omega-Enkaphalin."

"I have a bandage here, sir. Used."

"Perfect. Gag the bitch then." The cries grew in volume before being muffled by something. Immediately afterwards, a few new and far louder screams of pain could be heard through whatever the Cerberus soldiers had gagged the asari with as something happened. Naylor placed his helmet on the floor, with no time to pull it back on before he breached the storage room. Pulling out his Eagle, Naylor quietly planted the palm of his hand against the holographic interface that was the door's control panel and waited for the metal barrier to be removed.

Immediately as the door opened the head of a Cerberus soldier snapped up, only to see the heavily armed Paladin turn round the edge of the door and then send a single round into his faceplate. Two other Cerberus assault troopers began moving for their Mattocks, but the next two shots sent them clattering to the floor too. The final Cerberus soldier was retreating through into the darkened store room, visible only by the reflection and lights on his armour. Naylor drew a bead, guessing where the body of the unknown asari that he was inevitably holding hostage was, and fired towards his head. A simple grunt was all Naylor needed to know that the assault trooper was dead.

"Hello? Anyone there?" Naylor's question into the darkness was rewarded by muffled screams and the struggling of a different shadow within the dark. He had forgotten about the gag after all, and as his eyes glanced up he saw how the lights in the room had been completely shot out by someone. "You might want to close your eyes." Hitting the flashlight on the bottom of his pistol, Naylor watched as the storage room was illuminated. And his heart sank. Tevos, her face bruised and her dress crumpled, was tied up on the floor, a bloody bandage having been forced into her mouth and slowly choking her with both the lack of breath and the rancid smell of human blood. Tears ran down her cheeks as she stared up into the light from the flashlight.

"Tevos!" Tevos let off a far less painful cry as soon as she realised who the silhouette she was seeing was. Naylor ran down beside her, dropping to his knees and throwing the bandage as far away as he could, noticing the stream of purple blood running down her neck and being absorbed into her dress from what looked like a split lip, although the amount of blood on her dress was scarily high. Smashing his fist into the biotic-nullifying restraints that were clamped around her wrists, Naylor cradled the now freed Councillor against his chest. "Please tell me you're okay. God, please."

"_I'm fine. Goddess, I'm fine!_" A solitary sob could be heard as the Councillor let fresh tears fall from her eyes, weaving her arms around Naylor's chest and holding herself against the chestplate there. Naylor took a second to suddenly realise that the words that she was speaking were not being translated from Thessian standard into English by the two translator receivers in his ears. "_You saved me again. Goddess, you're always there for me." _Another dribble of blood from her lip gave the councillor an interesting lisp as the fluid dripped into her mouth, prompting Naylor to think that the liquid was messing with her translator. But when Tevos lifted her head, getting used to the light from Naylor's omni-tool, the lieutenant suddenly saw the reason for the size of the blood stain.

"Your translator!" A gaping purple hole could be seen where the transmitter piece of Tevos' standard-design translator would usually lay above her voice box. Given how she was able to speak in Thessian and breathe properly, and the slice-like nature of the wound, the small piece of technology had likely been torn out by the business end of a combat knife, and it was lucky that the incision hadn't torn a hole through her larynx and the trachea connected to it. As soon as he realised that, he immediately began trying to remember what Thessian standard he knew. Fortunately, through her dealings with politicians, Tevos was ahead of him.

"I'm fine kori. Please, you don't need to fuss about it." The English words that she spoke were confused, the accent wrong, but to Naylor hearing her utter even one word in English was an incredibly good sign.

"To hell with fine, you're my adopted mother – I can fuss! If you die, that's the third parent I've lost and that isn't happening." A single tear dropped from her eye as Tevos smiled, her white teeth smeared purple as the blood dripped onto her top teeth from the split lip above them. Naylor quickly tore a sachet of medi-gel from his waist and began pouring it on the two wounds that he could see, making sure not to spill any of the fluid into Tevos' mouth lest the non-toxic gel choke her in her wounded state. The effect was immediate, the edges of the wounds being pulled together and binding under the influence of the gel. "Come on, let's get you out of here. It's not that great a place if our only light is an omni-tool."

"_Lieutenant, this is Clarke. I've found the Council, but the asari councillor isn't here. They got jumped a short while ago by Cerberus. She's been missing ever since."_

"Clarke, I have the Councillor here. She had been taken by a Cerberus team and heavily wounded. Count four dead Cerberus soldiers. We're coming out of a store close to the elevators, so don't shoot and have some medi-gel ready."

Naylor pulled an arm around his shoulder and hoisted Tevos to her feet, supporting the Councillor as he walked her out of the storage room. Immediately she caught her breath as she saw the dead bodies of the Cerberus soldiers Naylor had killed in the plaza a short few minutes earlier, but Naylor was more focussed on the others that were in the plaza at that very moment – Councillors Sparatus and Udina, the determined face of Spectre Williams, and the unmistakeable face of Tela Vasir, who was immediately relieved as she ran over to where Tevos leant against Naylor and began applying a dose of medigel to the councillor's closing wounds. The asari spectre hoisted Tevos' arm around her shoulder, taking the weight off of Naylor as the turian councillor, Sparatus, approached the lieutenant.

"Councillor Sparatus, I'm Staff Lieutenant Naylor, Alliance Marines. Commander Bailey sent us to help the Spectres here escort you up to the shuttle pad."

"It is good to see you Lieutenant." Nodding towards the bruised and shaken Tevos, the turian councillor extended his hand, and Naylor was almost unprepared for it, only shaking it in response after realising that the councillor was using that particular human greeting. "You have all of our thanks for rescuing the councillor. We were extremely concerned when she disappeared following an ambush a few minutes ago. Please, lead the way."

"Of course." Naylor and Clarke led Vasir and the councillors up the steps towards the elevators. "Roberts, this is Naylor. We've found the councillors."

"_Copy. We'll hold point around the elevators until Shepard arrives."_

"Roger that." Clarke hit the hologram on the door, drawing his shotgun before stepping inside as the elevator lobby opened up before him. Vasir followed, stepping in front of Naylor with her own shotgun drawn. The councillors followed, Ashley walking on in the middle of them. Tevos was last, smiling as she passed the Lieutenant. "Lieutenant."

"Councillor."

"I never mentioned how good it is to see you again, kori. I missed you."

"And I you." Rounding the corner into view, Naylor saw Clarke and Ashley standing by the far elevator, holding the doors open. Immediately adopting façades of professionalism, Tevos and Naylor entered the elevator, the lieutenant replacing his helmet as he stood beside the door opposite from Vasir and Clarke. Ashley hit the control panel as she entered, the doors closing behind her as the elevator started its accelerated journey up through the levels of the Presidium. "Lieutenant-Commander, there is a shuttle arriving at the pad, right?"

"I hope there is."

* * *

Shepard ran up the stairs towards where Roberts and Atkins had been holding out against the Cerberus forces flooding into the plaza. Thanks to a spell of Atlas-hijacking, the reinforcements had been dealt with, but the two had reported that a few of the Cerberus assassins had made it through their defensive perimeter.

"Commander, they're already inside but Cerberus found another route into the elevator lobby behind us. We have to hurry!"

"Of course. Sergeant Roberts, I want you with me, Garrus and Javik. EDI, hack into the elevator mainframe and do what you can to speed the Council's elevator up or delay Cerberus' elevator."

"I will try, Shepard." The AI led the way through the elevator lobby, interfacing with an elevator control panel as soon as she was in touching distance. "I have unlocked the elevator doors on the left, but the elevator is locked below our current level."

"We'll give you the signal when we're ready. Atkins, you cover her. Everyone, let's go." Javik and Garrus pulled the elevator doors open, Shepard entering and switching the light on her omni-tool on. With the elevator shaft illuminated and everyone safely in, Shepard gave the signal to EDI. "Okay, we're in the shaft. EDI, send us up."

"_I advise that you hold onto something, Commander. This will be a fast climb."_

The elevator rocketed up, sending Shepard and the five others on the elevator's roof sprawling to the floor. "No shit, EDI."

* * *

Shepard jumped from her elevator across to the Council's, but inside none of the occupants knew that. Instinctively, Ashley drew her Carnifex, pointing it at the sounds of the repeated impacts from people landing on the roof of the elevator. "ASSASSINS!"

Before Naylor got a chance to say anything, Ashley emptied her thermal clip into the ceiling, the bullets piercing the lightly armoured shell of the elevator and barely missing Shepard's barriers. Udina reached across and hit the emergency stop button, the elevator remarkably sliding to a halt in time for the doors to open to the emergency shuttle pad, right on the highest level on the Presidium. The Councillor led the way, Vasir, Sparatus and Tevos and Naylor exiting just afterwards as Ashley and Clarke lingered in the elevator. The pair followed afterwards, catching up with the Council as they rounded the last corner towards the shuttle pad, but Ashley had been expecting to see an asari or C-Sec shuttle waiting to take the Council to the Destiny Ascension. Udina, however, had arranged for an unmarked Kodiak to take the councillors, minus Ashley and Tela, to a different vessel, one controlled by Cerberus agents.

It was the unmarked Kodiak bit that was the problem in his plan – Cerberus gunships had shot it up before they had been forced to withdraw by the arrival of Alliance gunships, and its burning corpse was blocking the landing pad for any more shuttles to land there, while the smoke stopped any shuttles from coming close and picking the councillors up. Ashley cursed underneath her breath. "Cerberus must have taken out the shuttle!"

"Lieutenant-Commander, we can't get another shuttle up here. It's too dangerous, the airspace isn't clear enough." Naylor shouted towards the newly-promoted Spectre, who immediately took stock of the situation and turned everyone back from the landing pad.

"Everybody, get back to the elevator!" Ashley turned around, starting to make her way back towards the elevator when Shepard came around the corner. Roberts slammed her hand on the control console for the door to the elevator lobby, frying the circuits and locking the door shut. Shepard, Garrus and Javik had their rifles drawn and pointed at Udina, but Ashley drew her pistol and trained it on the Commander. "Shepard? What the hell's going on?"

"Shepard's blocking our escape. She must be with Cerberus!" Ashley ran over, placing herself in between the barrel of Shepard's rifle and Udina.

"Just hang on a minute. I have this. Everybody calm down!"

"Listen to me Ash! We don't have to end this by shooting each other!"

"Come on, Commander. You've drawn a gun on a councillor! It kind of looks bad on your part."

Garrus raised his rifle, training it towards Ashley. Involuntarily, the turian tightened his finger on the trigger, but Shepard beat him to the punch.

"Garrus, stand down. You too Javik. We don't have time to negotiate! You've been fooled, all of you. Udina is behind this attack. Councillor Valern proved it." Udina began stepping forward, placing himself alongside Ashley while still staring down at Shepard.

"Please, you have no proof. You never do!"

"There are Cerberus soldiers behind that door, Udina. If you go through that door, they'll kill you all."

During the confrontation, Naylor had been standing in front of Tevos, protecting her with behind his armour's shields in case weapons were fired by any party. However, he didn't notice when she stepped out from behind him, his eyes being firmly fixed on the door rather than the form of Udina's back, off to the side with Ashley. "Whether our governments' fault or our own, we mistrusted Shepard about the Reapers and it did _not_ help us. We should be trusting her now." But Ashley did not relent, and seeing that the confrontation would not end soon Udina turned from where he was standing, walking towards a secondary control panel at the edge of the landing pad.

"We don't have time to debate this. We're dead if we stay here. I'm overriding the lock!" Udina began typing away on the panel, beginning to enter his Council override that would automatically open the door. Ashley and Shepard remained standing off against each other, the former's weapon still trained on the latter and the latter's weapon still trained on Udina. However there was no immediate solution – Naylor knew that if he joined in the confrontation now, he wouldn't even have time to train his gun before either Ashley or, less likely, Vasir placed a round in his head. He didn't know who was on whose side. It was the same no-win situation for all the other people present. But if Udina opened that door, Naylor was sure that Cerberus forces would flood in and kill everyone in the room.

"Ash, I asked you to trust me on Mars when I said I didn't know that Cerberus were there." Shepard's voice lowered, approaching a bestial growl. "You know that if I wanted the Council dead, like Udina believes, I would have killed them already."

"Shepard, that doesn't help!"

"Think about it, Ash. Please."

"Commander, you were with Cerberus on Horizon. You flew through the Omega Four relay in a Cerberus-marked vessel. I can't trust you, not after all that."

"Spectre Williams, Shepard's vessel was far from a Cerberus ship when Liara and I were there ten months ago. Every Cerberus marking on the ship was obliterated, and every crewmember followed Shepard, not the Illusive Man." Tela took her chance to speak her mind, her pistol trained on the door instead of any of those involved in the standoff. "And take a look at what she's done in the past month since the Reapers arrived. She's attacked Cerberus installations, rescued students from the clutches of those terrorists. She even rescued and resurrected a Prothean from under their noses and kicked them off of Eden Prime! Tell me, how in the name of the Goddess does that mean that she is still affiliated with them?"

"It could all be a ruse, all be a-"

"This is no ruse, Williams. If it was, then the ruse would be so damaging to Cerberus that any benefits that it could bring in would be useless."

Ashley sighed. Her head and her gut were telling her two different things, and she couldn't trust either. Her head was telling her that Shepard couldn't be trusted, but her gut was telling her to trust in the person that had stopped Sovereign, stopped the Collectors and put two fingers up to Cerberus in the process. "I better not regret this." She lowered her Carnifex, slowly turning around as Shepard lowered her own pistol. "Udina. Step away from the console."

"To hell with this!" Udina activated his Council override, the door motors unlocking themselves one by one. Naylor trained his Eagle on the door, not noticing as Tevos stepped back towards the shuttle pad, the slight haze of biotics crackling around her fingertips. She walked up to Udina, the biotics now flaring across her entire body and drawing Udina's attention. Reaching out a hand to stop the override, Tevos spoke slowly, accentuating each word with as much venom as she could muster.

"Udina. Step back." The human did not listen, instead turning on the asari councillor and punching her in the gut. With the wind knocked out of her, Tevos had to let her biotics die for a second, allowing Udina the chance to push her back with both hands. The blow was unexpected, and Tevos let out a surprised shout as she fell, turning into a cry of pain as her head whipped back when she hit the floor, the tips of her crest impacting painfully against the cold and unforgiving metal floor.

Naylor turned instantly as soon as he heard Tevos' voice, his gun lowered as the councillor walked up to Udina. But when Udina punched her in the gut and Naylor heard the cry of pain from the councillor, his Eagle snapped up, the laser sight aimed squarely towards Udina's chest. But the human councillor ignored this, instead reaching behind his back and pulling the one thing Naylor didn't want to see – a small, compact Phalanx heavy pistol. Udina trained it on Tevos' head, the asari pushing herself backwards across the floor like prey escaping from her predator. Naylor could see the fear written on her face and the anger on Udina's, and the world slowed down. To Naylor there were only three people in existence at this point – himself, Tevos, and Udina with his pistol.

"He's got a gun!" Naylor barely heard Ashley's cry from behind him. Instead, all he could hear was the singular bark of a pistol, followed by two more shots. Udina's body jerked backwards, the slugs taking him in the chest and shoulder, before the now lifeless body slumped forwards, falling to the floor. Naylor lowered his pistol as he heard the thud of the body hitting the ground, before seeing the wisp of steam rise from the barrel of his pistol, and the look of alarm on the faces of everyone around. Then the realisation hit him.

"Oh god."

"You shot Udina. You killed the councillor!" Williams trained her gun on Naylor, before Shepard quickly flash-stepped up to her side with her biotics and gently pushed the gun down towards the floor.

"Ash, not now! Lieutenant, are you okay?"

"A bit shaken but I'm fine." In truth Naylor was having an internal crisis. His body raged in two different directions – he had just shot and killed a councillor, one of the four highest people in the galaxy, yet he had saved one of the councillors, and the person he counted as his mother, too. He walked forward, extending a hand out towards where Tevos was lying in a state of shock and surprise. The asari took it, pulling herself up off of the floor and steadying herself with a hand on the Lieutenant's shoulder. "I just shot the councillor?"

"You did, Lieutenant." Sparatus' voice came from behind him. "But you saved the life of Councillor Tevos, and had you not stepped in as you did, my life as well. Thank you." Unfortunately, before Sparatus could finish congratulating Naylor on something the lieutenant didn't want congratulating about, he was interrupted by Roberts, who with Clarke had been standing at the back of the confrontation with their weapons pointed towards the door.

"Commander? We have a problem!" The door was being cut open, Udina's override affecting the top half of the door with the bottom still locked in place. Shepard raised her pistol, joined this time by Tela, Ashley, Garrus, Javik, Roberts andClarke, presenting a wall of gun barrels to anyone trying to exit out onto the landing pad. Except when the door opened, the figure they saw wasn't the one they were expecting.

"Bailey?" The C-Sec commander stood on the other side of the door with two armoured human C-Sec officers, assault rifles raised and pointing at the multitude of figures on the outside of the door.

"We made it as fast as we could, Shepard. Looks like you, uh, took care of things?"

"Commander." Tevos called over from where she was standing beside Naylor. "Something seems not quite right. You said Cerberus was targeting us. But where did their soldiers go?"

"They were right here on the other side of this door, but they beat feet into the keeper tunnels before we got here. I have already got a squad of ten officers combing those tunnels along with seven of Lieutenant Naylor's marines and a mech. but those Cerberus troopers are long gone, as if they knew we were coming."

"You've saved my life twice now, Shepard." Sparatus walked up towards Shepard as the Spectre stored away her weapon. "I owe you a personal debt I cannot repay, as well as one on behalf of Palaven."

"I am honoured Councillor Sparatus, but neither of you hold any debt to me."

"Then you do me an honour instead. Do you have any idea why the Illusive Man would want to do a thing like this?"

"Nothing less than theories, councillor. But I plan to find out." Bailey began shuffling the councillors inside and away from the landing pad, and after a moment of thinking, Shepard quickly detailed Naylor and Roberts to help escort Tevos and Sparatus back to their offices, prompting a hidden smile from the Councillor. Naylor entered the corridor back to the elevator after Tevos, alongside Vasir with his hand on his pistol in case of any unseen attacks by lingering, cloaked assassins. The Spectre leaned in, talking in a hushed whisper.

"I would have shot Udina given the chance. Don't tear yourself up over it. The man was as arrogant as you could get."

"As arrogant as the Shadow Broker was thinking he was assured in getting your loyalty?"

"Oh, I'd say more. Not by much, but more." Tela smiled, patting him on the shoulder and getting into the next available elevator alongside Tevos. Naylor fitted himself in by the door with the ceiling service hatch in front of him, acting as a guard to anyone trying to enter the elevator and attack the councillor, however unlikely that was in the aftermath of the defeat of the Cerberus forces on the Presidium. Keeping the mental command for activating his omni-shield, Naylor hit the control panel to send them down to the base of the Presidium.

* * *

"I just received a report over the Spectre network from Commander Bailey. All security camera recordings of the assassin who made the attempt on Valern's life and tried to attack the rest of the Council have been wiped clean. We have no idea where he fled to before Bailey reached the landing pad or where he has fled to now that the attack is over." Tela Vasir was sitting with Naylor and Tevos on the couch in the councillor's office, the three of them talking in Thessian standard (or in Naylor's case, trying to talk in Thessian standard) to make up for the fact that Tevos' translator was missing and the fact that Naylor spoke normally in English and Tela in the vastly different Lusian-based dialect of Thessian standard, given how she had been taught on that world by her mother in her youth.

"Cerberus probably still has bugs within the system, not to mention having soldiers still holding out or hiding in isolated parts of the station. He may still be on the station"

"I guess so, but the attack was restricted to the Presidium and the junctions to the ward arms. C-Sec won't let them hold on to any gains they've made there any time soon, and if this guy is still here, we'll be able to find him."

"Yeah. From what I've got from Shepard and Admiral Hackett, that assassin, one Kai Leng, is supposedly one of the highest ranking agents on the Illusive Man's beck and call list." Naylor sipped at his tea, enjoying the quality of the brew compared to the muck that was more usually served in the mess halls of Alliance ships, the Normandy included. "Shepard's getting Intel to throw together a dossier on the man, but so far it isn't promising. Alliance training, youngest N7 graduate before yours truly, dishonourable discharge for poor conduct towards civilians, both humans and of other races. He's a nasty piece of work, made worse by whatever it is that Cerberus throws into the mix."

"Thank the Goddess then that we did not fall into his hands. Or Cerberus' hands for that matter."

"I'll drink to that, and the accuracy of Lieutenant Naylor here."

"To the first, I think we all will. I just don't want to be made out as someone who kills councillors." Naylor took a long drink from his tea, emptying the cup and enjoying how the warmth permeated every part of his body within a few seconds. Tela and Tevos also took sips from their own cups, the former half-complaining, half-joking about the lack of alcohol in the councillor's office. "I wish there was better news to talk about, though."

"So do I." Tevos placed her cup down on the table in front of her. "But what is there to talk about? The Krogan involvement is something to celebrate."

"Then why do we not celebrate it?"

"Because wherever we look, every good event has something terrible driving it. We celebrate the krogan allying with the turians, putting millennia-old grudges behind them, but they are only doing this because we were not ready and cannot defeat the Reapers on our own."

"Councillor, none of us would have been ready had we had another millennia to prepare."

"Naylor's right. The turians were as ready for this as they could have been, and the Reapers cut through them like butter. But if they can do that to the turians, what will they do to the asari?"

"I do not know, Tela. I am not the one to ask about that." Tevos took her cup up again, refilling it from the steaming hot fluid in the pot on the table before holding it close to her chest, enjoying the warmth emanating from it. "But the matriarchs will talk about what has transpired today. We cannot avoid this war now. Cerberus has done the convincing of Thessia's politicians in one day that I could not do in three years."

"Do you think the matriarchs will release our fleets to Admiral Hackett's command?"

"I do not know. These next few days will tell us, but Admiral Hackett may get the fleets that he wishes for. Not all of the fleets will be able to join the Alliance, but plenty of captains will no doubt want to join the effort if they had the chance." A few moments of silence passed, all three of the people in the room enjoying the tea and the relaxation after the chaos of the past hours. From his spot on the sofa, Naylor barely needed to move his head to see the results of the carnage – smoke billowed up through the atmosphere of the Presidium from the floor.

"As much as I like the company, Councillor, I'm afraid that I need to leave. The universe doesn't stop for anything, and I still have this assignment that Councillor Valern put me on before this all began."

"It has been good to talk with you, Tela. Good luck with your assignment."

"Thanks. And Naylor, good luck with the Reapers. Give them hell!" Naylor raised his cup in response as the Spectre half walked, half ran out of the room. As soon as she had left, Tevos moved towards the Lieutenant on the couch, her posture changing quickly to one that was far less formal and far more intimate.

"I had been hoping to have another chance to talk, kori. I just didn't think that I would get the chance off of something like this."

"I don't think anyone expected anything like this. Are you sure you're okay? Shepard may end up throwing the Normandy's crew a decent shore leave this time, and if you need anything I'd be around."

"That shouldn't be necessary. I will be fine, in time." Tevos slowly added the last line, almost shivering as she remembered the fear flooding her system when Udina pulled his gun on her. Naylor noticed the change, placing a hand on her shoulder and stroking, slowly, non-verbally encouraging her to change the subject to something less raw. "You've grown better at speaking in asari tongues since I last heard you speak it."

"I've been working with Doctor T'Soni on the Normandy. We sometimes talk in Thessian as a bit of fun, and it's nice to get some practice given I was hopeless at trying to speak the language when I was on Thessia last year."

"Hmm, how did you come to work with Doctor T'Soni?"

"I pointed out to Shepard how she was looking incredibly tired when she made a rare excursion outside of her office, and the commander volunteered me to help her out with her work on the Crucible's designs."

"Interesting. I sometimes wonder what would have happened had Doctor T'Soni been alive in a different time. I firmly think that, had she still possessed the sort of drive that has defined her work, she would have changed and shaped the galaxy for the better. Unfortunately events seem to go against us in that regard."

"Doctor T'Soni does say that she is only as influential as she is because of how powerful even her mother's name was, and that the work of the Reapers is why she's so driven in what she does and has been doing."

"I understand. She takes a lot after Commander Shepard, humble and willing to listen yet determined and driven to complete her goal."

"I can agree to that. If you don't mind me asking, what happened to Mallene and Serenya during the attack?"

"They are fine. Both received wounds when a window exploded next to them when the attack began. They're up in Huerta Memorial at the moment getting some frankly minor treatment they insist they do not need. I understand that Shepard had a squad mate taken there?"

"I think that was Thane Krios. He saved Valern's life, though from what I hear in exchange for his own. Shepard said that he had been suffering from Kepral syndrome before the attack, and had had only weeks to live."

"The terrible effect of Kahje's climate on drell respiratory systems. To fight through that and still save Valern's life... I will try and extend what gratitude I can. He saved the life of a Councillor, and gave you time to save me." Tevos' voice hitched slightly as she spoke, her body shivering as she unwittingly brought the memories of the day's events boiling back to the surface of her mind. Naylor placed his cup, devoid of tea, down on the table in front of him and gently pulled the councillor in close with the arm that he had been resting on her shoulder. Resting her side against Naylor's, she used his shoulder as a cushion to lay her head on. Naylor leant the side of his own head against hers, careful not to cause any pressure on her crests as he did so.

With her own drink finished, Tevos placed the cup down on the table in front of her. Her heart was warmed at the way that Naylor was reciprocating the feelings that she felt for him, and she was whispered prayers of thanks to Athame that, of all the people that had been there during the fateful hours of that day, it had been Naylor to stand next to her during the confrontation, and be there when she was staring death down the barrel of a traitor's weapon. She raised her head and leant herself towards the lieutenant, pressing her lips against the side of his temple for a brief moment before pulling back and resting her head on his shoulder once more. For those few moments, nothing else mattered more to her.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: **I am lamenting Office 2013's lack of an autocorrect tab for spelling mistakes. I had a nice autocorrect for changing Lidnaya to Lidanya, but I've looked through many menus and I can't find how to change that! Therefore, if you see any obvious spelling mistakes, please give a shout out in the review.

If, however, you shout out anything that I've spelt in a British way rather than in a different version of English… don't get me started on that!

* * *

**Day Sixty, Citadel Space Station**

Shepard had indeed given the crew of the Normandy a period of shore leave, taking her squad and a skeleton crew of twenty four into the Attican Traverse, behind the Reaper invasion front that was moving in leaps and bounds towards the Terminus Systems. Naylor, his ground team and the remaining twenty four of the Normandy's crew remained behind on the Citadel, given ten days off from the war to rest and prepare for whatever lay in store. Since the moment Shepard had announced the shore leave, Naylor had made a beeline for one place he knew he could still help out in.

Tevos' office had been a maelstrom of activity in the past few days, working flat out to cope with the fallout from Cerberus' attack on the Citadel a week ago and the most important of the recent developments - the matriarchal council knew now that there was no way to avoid the war, not with the heart of civilisation still burning from the fires of the attack, and Lidanya had literally ran into Tevos' office while the councillor and Naylor were studying reports of Cerberus remnants on the Citadel, brandishing the datapad seconding the Second and Sixth Fleets to the Admiral Hackett's slowly massing forces, now being called the Joint Fleet.

Since then, Tevos had ordered her entire staff, both those working in her section and Irissa's part of the embassy, down on the Presidium's floor, to begin working on getting asari forces up to speed with Reaper developments and get cities to deploy their best prepared commando units wherever the Alliance needed. The vanguard of the commandos came from the planet of Lusia and the Thessian cities of Armali and Serrice, whose forces had already been active helping human and Alliance colonies in the Attican traverse and behind Reaper lines since Shepard and Tevos had agreed on a mutual assistance pact nearly two months before. The Serrice Guard, led by Captain Arteri, and the Fourth Armali Commando Group, led by Naylor's old colleague Captain Lemaes, coming back from a series of anti-Cerberus operations in the Terminus Systems, were the first to heed the Councillor's call for support, sent thousands of light-years across the galaxy to prepare to evacuate Pinnacle Station, hoping to evacuate the turian and Alliance special forces units besieged by Reaper forces there. When Naylor was to return to the Normandy in five days' time, he reckoned, no doubt, that the first stop they would make would be to the planetoid to lend assistance.

As well as getting commando units to deploy from Thessia and other worlds to the front lines, Tevos' efforts had been going towards finding scientists and engineers for the Crucible Project. They were led by Doctor Jelize, a scientist who had been working above the planet of Hanalei before being reassigned to the Crucible team, but included scientists from far and wide places including garden worlds like Thessia and Niacal and other, less-hospitable worlds such as the planetoid Trikalon, where a team working on a supercollider had been repurposed to help the Crucible's human and turian engineers cope with the extraordinary forces that would be involved with activating or even moving the Crucible.

Naylor had also pulled in a few favours from old colleagues and friends – the head of Project Arvana, Professor Astaya, and a number of scientists that had been working on Antimony before the batarian attack had all responded to his queries about sending them to the Crucible to assist with the project. Astaya in particular had quickly been given a senior role thanks to her work on Arvana, working with the drone controllers responsible for the Crucible's self-repair systems. A few hours ago, she had sent Naylor a very warm email, thanking him for giving her that particular chance to work on the galaxy's greatest hope.

For the moment, though, Tevos had stopped the organised chaos in her office, instead forcing those inside to eat a quick lunch break. Naylor had slouched himself on the balcony, pulling out a ration pack he had been carrying around for the day and began tucking into it. He was joined soon by Mallene and Morila, the pair carrying steaming plates of eezo-rich asari cuisine cooked up by the embassy's kitchen staff, but as soon as Morila saw the bland-looking and pretty tasteless ration, she wanted to give her meal way to the human instead.

"Goddess, please Lieutenant, take the food! How can you eat that stuff?"

"It's a normal ration, I eat these every day."

"So all the more reason to have a better cooked meal, so please, take mine."

"I can't actually eat the food, Morila. That's syntri, too rich in eezo for non-biotics. I can't eat that stuff."

"But-"

"Morila, he's not asari, not a biotic, and he's an actual soldier. If he's fine with the ration he's eating, he won't want your own food." Mallene finally interjected into the conversation, shutting Tevos' assistant up mid-sentence before diving back into her own meal. Naylor smiled calmly, attacking his own meal with the cutlery he had brought over in his pack. The other asari around him all buzzed with conversation, the time that they lived in being one of the most interesting of asari history.

Tevos slumped down beside the trio, cradling two plates of food and causing Mallene's eyes to immediately snap open in surprise. The councillor then passed one of them across to where Naylor was sitting down, the lieutenant accepting it with thanks. "Mallene, please remember that I do not have an appetite like yours."

Naylor barely managed a cursory "Cheers" before diving into the meal of what was the asari approximation of chicken and rice.

"I had this brought in especially. Hope you don't mind."

The first bite Naylor took was incredibly promising, the food cooked to perfection and slowly assaulting his taste buds with a subtle blend of flavours. As he swallowed the mouthful, a slight tang of spice rolled up through the back of his throat, building suddenly until his palate started tingling. "The meal's fine, if a little bit on the spicy side." Tevos chuckled, tucking into her own meal. When Serenya joined the councillor, the group descended into another happy conversation. Very soon, Mallene began setting out her plans for a planned trip out to what she claimed was the latest place to go on the Citadel, a club called Purgatory in the Presidium, and how she planned to pull Morila along with the group. Naylor knew the place – one of the contacts he had met for Liara during his last stay on the Citadel had insisted on meeting in the club, and it was already incredibly popular with Alliance, Turian and C-Sec service personnel on leave.

"Goddess, must you continue to torment me by trying to pull me out towards this goddess-forsaken club?"

"Morila, don't take it too seriously. We just want to have a bit fun, and you could actually do with having a good night out once in a while."

"Goddess, I don't actually have enough time to take a night out. Someone has to reorganise all the things we're working on right now after the incompetence that you lot display."

"Whoa, we're not so incompetent you have to spend your entire life working!" The attendant raised one of her small eyebrow markings, sending Naylor into a fit of laughter. His omni-tool, however, cut his part in the conversation short. When he looked down at the device, it was blinking rapidly, telling him that someone was trying to video call Naylor over the extranet. Setting his plate down, Naylor pulled himself up with the help of the small wall dividing Tevos' office and the balcony.

"Sorry guys, I should take this." Hearing a few food-muffled murmurs of approval, Naylor walked out the office and into the empty corridor outside, opening up his omni-tool to see the caller. "Figures, it would have to be Liara, wouldn't it." Accepting the call, Naylor waited for a few seconds as the call information was routed through the extranet. "Liara, it's good to see you."

"Good to see you too, Peter. How are you on the Citadel? I understand you're helping out in the asari embassy."

"The Citadel's doing well, considering half of the Presidium is torn up with bullet holes, things are pretty good here. The asari embassy's working on deploying its military as soon as they can to assist in the war effort, and it's been pretty chaotic over the past few days. Tevos has me back as a temporary bodyguard while Mallene and Serenya are on an enforced period of light duty."

"I hope they recover soon. I'm missing your ability to cover the night shifts. I have some information for you, however. Do you remember when we found out what we believed to be correspondence between Ambassador Irissa and Aria T'Loak?"

"Yeah, I remember it. What's happened?"

"I tried placing an agent as close to the ambassador as I could. It paid good dividends – Irissa herself is working with T'Loak, and she is due to be arriving on the Citadel close to the end of the current cycle."

"Wow. I never thought it would actually be Irissa involved. Won't C-Sec arrest T'Loak the second she steps off of her ship? Actually, this is the former ruler of Omega – she'd probably annihilate her way through half of the two hundred thousand officers before finding a way to bring them under her wing."

"In my experience, she'd probably try and have sex with the surviving officers one by one."

"You have experience with Aria?"

"Yes. She helped me to get Shepard's body back. But we're digressing. Shepard wants this information going around, to Commander Bailey, Admiral Hackett, even Councillor Tevos. And we're still a few days away from returning to the Citadel, so at the moment you're the only one who can do this for us."

"Alright, I'll see what I can do. I don't think I'll be going up to the councillor and saying 'Hey, Aria T'Loak and Ambassador Irissa are working together, and the former's about to arrive on the station. Have a nice day!'"

"Goddess, of course not! I will leave how you get the information out up to you, but Shepard is insistent about it. Send me a message when you get that done. Oh, hang on, Shepard's just arrived. I'll hand this over to her." There was a brief few moments of static as Liara re-routed the video call from her omni-tool through to Shepard's. The Spectre's face showed up as she tried angling her omni-tool to include both her and Liara on the same image. The asari, however, waved the commander off, wanting to concentrate on her work again.

"I'll get on it as soon as I can. Commander, it's good to see you."

"Hello Lieutenant. Enjoying the Citadel?"

"Definitely more relaxing than the Normandy, but things are getting quite hectic. The asari are deploying as quickly as they can, and you should have two fleets and several commando groups including the Serrice Guard joining Hackett's forces within the next few days."

"That's stunning. Liara's told you about Irissa, correct?"

"Yeah, I don't quite know what to make of the entire situation. I was holding out for it to be a mole within Irissa's department, but finding out that it's the Ambassador herself is quite a shock."

"I know. Aria's a rather interesting person – I've never been a fan of working with her, but she could well be a big ally if we can convince her to provide support for the war effort. I had to deal with her while I was on Omega, and I reckon if she can be brought around to our side she could very well unite a good deal of the Terminus systems on our side with her influence."

"Do you want me to try and open communications with her, try and get her to get talking with you?"

"Bad move all round. The general rule is that you don't talk to Aria, she talks to you and you reply. Even on the Citadel, she will hold the power in a conversation. Either leave it to me to contact her or we wait until she contacts us. Don't try anything too quickly."

"Got it. It may take time to find a cover for getting any information on Aria and Irissa out to the Councillor et al, however. I don't think getting rid of Liara's cover is advisable."

"The hell it isn't. Take your time over this one – we're extending our deployment out here for another few days to clean up the situation at Pinnacle. Once we're done, Special Operations Team Delta should be deploying from the station along with a Turian special operations group under Captain Vidinos. He's an old acquaintance from when I was given access to the station back in 2183. We'll be covering their deployments with the Normandy before we return to the Citadel and pick the rest of the crew."

"Are you sure you have a large enough crew, Shepard? I can issue a partial recall notice for a dozen or so crew members and get my ground team deployed back aboard the Normandy as soon as you give the word."

"We can cover it. I've still got enough tricks up my sleeves, and my team's never been stronger since I had a deserved change of heart with Liara. She's been very useful on ground missions with her singularities, and I kind of regret not taking her at all. I owe her a whole string of apologies for the last three years."

"You had your reasons, Commander. I need to get going, but keep us updated on the situation." Naylor turned back to the Councillor's office, hearing the hubbub from inside rise in volume as he got closer and closer to the door. "Keep the Normandy safe Shepard. I'd rather go to war on that ship than a clunky old Geneva-class cruiser." Punching the door hologram, Naylor re-entered the office, waving out of shot at those that acknowledged his return.

"I'll drink to that if I had anything to drink. See you in another few days." Naylor turned back to the office, walking in as the very short lunch break was being finished. As he passed Tevos' desk, he overheard the beginning of another conversation between one of Lidanya's commandos and Lieutenant Finn, the Alliance attaché sent to the office to help streamline the process of deploying asari forces to the war effort.

"I just don't understand how it can take so long to organise units to be deployed. Surely the asari general staff should be looking to streamline this?"

"You're forgetting, Lieutenant, that the asari don't have a general staff like we do." Naylor walked up to the pair, interjecting into the conversation as Lidanya approached to find out why her commando was being delayed. "Matriarch Lidanya, do you wish to explain?"

"I am sure that your grasp of asari military forces would suffice, but I shall. Lieutenant Finn, the asari have, compared to the Alliance and the Turian Hierarchy, a very irregular command structure, similar to how irregular our fighting style is. The Asari High Command are our highest military authority, and they command our fleets, but the only commando units that they have available are those stationed on our warships, like the 1st Ascension Commando Group that Huntress Tanna over there is a part of. The fleets are technically the only formal military that the asari possess.

"The commando groups that we have been trying to organise the deployment of at the moment are from cities and towns across asari space. Technically, as they are militia units whose role is for the defence of the population in said city or town, they are not part of the same command chain as the commandos on our ships, and thus Asari High Command cannot order them around. The one way that we _can_ take control of those commando groups is if we request the individual city or town to second units for an operation, at which point we gain control over them until the mission is complete.

"The work that we've been doing here has been to deploy commandos from our major cities like Serrice and Armali on Thessia, and Monoi on Lusia, as part of our response against the Reapers in the wider galaxy. Given asari society, this is not something that can be undertaken quickly, but is instead a long process. It is probably one of the biggest downfalls of our society that we could have – were the Reapers to have arrived in asari space first rather than Batarian space, we would likely have lost an entire species by this moment."

"Where the asari system gets complicated, Finn, is how the militia commandos are considered in the same branch of ranks as the naval commandos, so a militia captain could order around a naval lieutenant, and so on. If you then add in matriarchal commando bodyguards, that's where it gets very confusing."

"Matriarchs have bodyguards?" Finn's question prompted a slight roll of the eyes on Maya's behalf, as well as a chuckle from Lidanya.

"Matriarchs attract a lot of followers, and often commandos approach them to ask whether they could serve the matriarch as a bodyguard. These commandos come from both our naval commando units and our militia units, and they retain their rank when they join a matriarch's bodyguard, but they are as of then completely outside of the normal militia or naval command system. That is to say, we can't ask a matriarch for her to second her bodyguard to High Command for an operation."

"Some matriarchs, however, do let High Command use their commandos if they are in need of the skills that those commandos can offer. Matriarch Lidanya often gives the bodyguard that I am a proud part of the chance to deploy alongside the Destiny Ascension's commandos on operations." Maya's face beamed with pride as she spoke, a smile breaking out on her lips as she paused or a short second. "Matriarch Benezia, before she was corrupted by that _malaka _Saren, often had her commandos working with the asari fleets. I had the pleasure of working with Shiala Vosen on a number of occasions."

"Basically, Finn, don't think about the asari system as similar to ours. There's a reason why you've got Maya assisting your role as an attaché here and she knows what she's talking about. You'll be fine." Naylor quickly left the conversation, seeing Tevos looking his way, and strode over to where the Councillor was standing, reading from a datapad. "Councillor?"

"Kori, I wanted to ask a question." Naylor gave a slight nod of the head, prompting Tevos to continue. "Commander Shepard is in a relationship with a quarian, Tali'Zorah vas Neema, correct?"

"Yeah, I think. It's a bit outside of the kind of space I'd usually try to find out about, with the Alliance's stand on fraternization and all, but why did you ask?"

"I wanted to know whether she knows anything about the Migrant Fleet." Naylor's brow furrowed in confusion, before he realised why the Councillor was asking.

"Oh, of course. Your father was a quarian. I'm sorry, but we're as much in the dark as everyone else. One of Doctor T'Soni's former contacts from her days as an information broker said that they had been seen in the Valhallan Threshold well over two months ago but we've not heard anything since then, not even rumours."

"I was hoping for at least something, but thank you nonetheless. I still feel greatly for the quarian people, and wish that there were more support from the Republics to do something about their situation. I guess though that that time has gone."

"Sadly I have to agree."

* * *

"See you in another few days." Shepard hung up the omni-tool, turning back to Liara, who was still tapping away at her terminal. As the sound of the video conversation died down, the asari silently walked over to the rear of the cabin, searching for something there. Shepard followed the asari after a few seconds, heading to the bedchamber within the cabin. With a cry of success, Liara pulled out a black box from the mess of containers, brushing past the Spectre and plugging it into a terminal. Intrigued, Shepard moved in for a closer look, but the asari waved her off, instead tapping away on her omni-tool for a few seconds.

"So this is the project you sent me an email about?"

"Yes. It's my less elegant equivalent to the prothean beacons, but I will explain it later. Please, take a seat." The asari pointed Shepard towards the two chairs that she had in the room, and the Spectre pulled them up towards where the project was still plugged into the terminal. The pair sat side by side, close enough to hear the other breathing, but neither felt uncomfortable. "I've been thinking about the knowledge that we've gathered on the Reapers, and how easily it could get lost once more. So, with Lieutenant Naylor's help the last time we were on the Citadel, I put a plan in motion to preserve things for the future."

Tapping on a holographic interface on the box, Liara activated the holographic projector installed inside it, a beam of bright blue light stabbing up from the centre of the device. "What's this?"

"It's a record of the galaxy in our time. I've included information on the Reapers, the mass relays, the different cultures of the species." The asari gave a final tap on the interface, changing the display once more. "And the blueprints for the Crucible."

"I thought you had yet to finish translating them."

"The final designs are being translated at the moment, but as soon as they are completed they can be added to the archives with but a single command from the terminal here."

"Fifty thousand years is a long time for a computer, or a set of computers, to last."

"Please, Shepard, remember I used to be an archaeologist. I have studied the prothean beacons, taken what was good and changed what didn't work. All of these boxes are or will be encased in time capsules, and seeded on multiple planets. And while it's not foolproof, the version of Glyph that I've installed has every translation and linguistic program that I could find. I know what I'm doing with this." Shepard's eyebrows lifted as Liara explained what she had done for the capsules. The Spectre was impressed, seeing the old side to the asari that had been buried in three years of concentrating on the Reapers and the war.

"So it's an information guide, like Vigil on Ilos?"

"Yes, I suppose it is."

"And it will be a privilege to guide the future discoverers of these records." Shepard smiled, knowing that Liara's dedication to this project would see it through successfully. The asari noticed the human's demeanour change, smiling back.

"But there's one last entry I wanted your opinion on."

"Which entry?"

"Yours."

Shepard couldn't help but laugh as she heard the asari talk about the final entry that she had to complete, but stopped as soon as Liara gave her a slight sideways look. "Seriously, Liara, you're making an entry about me?"

"Yes. You could very well be the person who has led the galaxy closest to victory over the Reapers in the entire history of their cycles. That deserves some mention at least, and I would be honoured to have your input on this entry."

"Liara, you've seen my past when we melded on the Normandy, and I know you've been following everything that I've done since I was brought back to life. Nobody is more qualified to tell the world about me. Be honest, everything good, bad, downright ludicrous. Let history be my judge."

Liara had already known that the Spectre was going to answer like that. Despite how the human strived to be unpredictable in the field, she stuck to a rigid set of values that shaped and defined the decisions that she made. Liara had once heard of an asari concept of a morality wheel, and Shepard was definitely what the concept would call a "top-right", a paragon in every sense. "Give them the facts, then? Let me delete these breathless paragraphs about your heroics then."

Shepard laughed at the asari's frankly masterful use of sarcasm, bringing another smile to Liara's face. "Did you write anything that I can't live up to?"

"I hope not. Let's begin by saying about how Earth's most famous officer was born and raised in space. It was her life onboard starships that led her to have powerful biotics, unstoppable when she charged into a fight, and unwavering when she fought the enemy.

"She was a soldier and a leader, one who made peace where she could, and always looked for a way to avoid a fight. It was a privilege to know her, and an even bigger privilege to serve alongside her."

"You should be careful that this doesn't sound like a diary, Liara." The asari leant back into her seat, turning her head to look towards where Shepard sat.

"I can't help it. You have been a good friend to me, and I am grateful for all that you have done for me."

"Even with Matriarch Benezia?"

"You had your reasons. I was not trained to fight then, I still am not now, but I never doubted your decision. To have taken me instead of Ashley, Wrex or Tali could have put all of you in danger. None of us knew about the Rachni in the tunnels of the peak."

"You are not sad that you weren't there when she died?"

"No. Being there in a fight with the dozen commandos that my mother had in her bodyguard would have paralysed me in fear. I couldn't have lifted a finger at them. And I still keep a part of my mother around with me all the time, both in my heart and in the memory sphere she kept with her before she died."

"I wondered why she seemed to be melding before she… before she shot herself. God, Liara, I really wish I had taken you there. To have had a chance to talk to her one last time. And I wish I had been there for you after that mission instead of running off back to the Citadel to face the Council. I'm so sorry." A small tear formed at the side of the Spectre's eye, only to be brushed aside by one of Liara's armoured thumbs. "Instead, you've been the one who's been there for me every step of the way. You saved my life, even though I was dead, and-"

"No, I haven't." Liara interrupted the commander, cutting in before the Spectre could finish her sentence. "I wish I could have joined you back on Illium, instead of giving you that cold, harsh reception that I did. And I wish I could have done more for you against the Collectors, and after Bahak and the Alpha Relay."

"But you made up for it. You gave us Ilos, you are the Shadow Broker, you've found the designs for the Crucible, and I couldn't be doing this without you."

"I… thank you, Shepard. I'm also sorry for when I tried to… back on the old Normandy in the room behind the med bay after you rescued me, and you got angry…"

"Liara, there was nothing wrong about that attempt at a kiss. You're young, you yourself admitted to wanting to stay away from people in seclusion, and you weren't to know about what was happening between Tali and I from just one crew meeting. I was just surprised when it happened, not angry." Shepard spun her chair around, facing the asari and taking the two gloved hands in her own pale-skinned ones. "Liara, you've sacrificed more than any of us to get this far. So please, promise me one thing in all this and do not forget about yourself. I care about you like the sister I never had, and I've never wanted you to get hurt, but if we are to die at the end of all this, then at least think about yourself before everything ends. Please, for me."

"Shepard, I-I will try."

* * *

**A/N: **Continuing my use of phonetic Greek in this thing, "malaka" means "fucker". I did mention last chapter how Benezia wanted to be remembered positively, and she's a pretty important and influential matriarch who killed herself rather than let Sovereign control her again…

On another note, I'll be putting up the next chapter of Isolated Occurrences (/s/9615652/) up soon. If you haven't checked that out, have a look at it. It's only two chapters done, and it's a minor project compared to Galaxy at War right now, but I'm finding a huge number of places that I can come up with chapters for. For instance, we have the attempted kiss between Shepard and Liara I mentioned here, the confrontation between Shepard and Ashley that led to the hostility between the pair in the Citadel coup, Tevos and the cover up of the Reapers and all the stuff to do with Naylor before the Reapers attack Khar'shan. Too much to do and not enough time... Sad.

**A/N 2: **Any of you who read the chapter when I first uploaded it will now notice that I've cut a fair bit from the end of the chapter. Given how the event that that bit was alluding to was originally in Chapter 19 and is now further back, I'm putting it back two chapters so that it flows within the story better.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: **This may seem a bit rushed out. Feels it. Simple reason is that I'm too busy either conquering the ancient world at the head of the Roman war machine (Total War: Rome II) or too busy invading Soviet Russia at the head of a panzer division (Company of Heroes 2). In short, I'm too busy gaming!

Here's what was actually a pretty difficult chapter to write, despite the fact that I'd been planning it for a while before I'd actually started putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Not because writing for Aria is difficult (the opposite is true in fact – I have a leather sofa just like a certain one in a certain club on a certain station that is just perfect for unleashing one's inner Aria!), but because my real-world experience with clubs is fairly limited and my ability to write normal conversation seemed to desert me during this chapter…

* * *

**Day Sixty Two. Citadel Space Station, Serpent Nebula**

Naylor and Serenya sat inside the apartment that the two commandos called home, talking about the war as they waited for the remainder of their party to emerge from getting ready. Unlike the other two asari joining them, Serenya was simply wearing her commando leathers while Naylor was dressed in the usual off-duty Alliance uniform, sleeves rolled up above the elbows. While in Naylor's case his lack of non-Alliance clothing was a cause of spending his working life flying around the galaxy on warships, Serenya only ever wore her armour or leathers, scorning the need to own dresses when she could be called up to protect the councillor at a moment's notice.

"Goddess, why do they have to take so long?"

"This is Mallene we're talking about, Serenya. She's probably still fussing over every aspect of how Morila looks." Naylor glanced again at the clock on his omni-tool, checking the time for the umpteenth time. They were due to be making their way to Purgatory in a few minutes' time, and the skycar that was waiting outside the apartment was idling away while the other two got ready. "Actually, I think I know why it's taking even longer than usual. Morila's probably trying to get out of it. Again."

"I don't see why she thinks she has to finish every piece of work that passes through the Councillor's office. We have a staff of over thirty to do everything in the daytime that she normally does every night."

"I think she's still trying to prove her worth to the Councillor. She only started the job a week or so before the Reapers hit."

"That was seventy days ago. I doubt that Tevos hasn't made her mind up about Morila yet. I think the Councillor had made up her opinion after just a couple of days even."

"She does have that ability to make a correct guess about someone that she's met for barely any time whatsoever. When she went to Thessia to check up on Arvana, she made a guess about one of the human scientists working on the project after talking to him for a few seconds. Turned out later that he was an agent for Cerberus."

"Figures. She remarked to Mallene and I that Udina's term would end badly for him when he succeeded Councillor Anderson earlier this year." The commander looked up at Naylor, smiling. "Is it me or can she predict the future?"

"I think it's just intuition mixed with experience of working alongside a massive range of personalities. Oh, just asking, what cover does Tevos have while you're away from the embassy?"

"You're such a bore! Tela Vasir's meeting the councillor tonight, so she should have it covered, but the Councillor's inside her apartment in the asari embassy and C-Sec's got a very heavy presence there now."

A sound from the apartment's upstairs broke the train of the conversation, heralding the appearance of Mallene from the bathroom. Customary to her style, the commando was wearing a shimmering silver dress that could only be described as barely covering anything, a few small adjustments making sure that she wasn't arrested for public indecency by C-Sec. She had made it clear to Naylor and Serenya her intentions for the night, both for herself and Morila. She planned on making the most out of the night, likely not even returning to the apartment at all that night, and with all the luck in the galaxy on her side, Morila would be doing the same. "Hey Mallene, you look good."

"Fancy something Lieutenant?" The commando struck a pose as she slunk her way down the stairs, deliberately trying to expose as much as possible and laughing when the other two blushed their faces off. "Oh, stop being prudish! We're going out to have some fun, and for me that'll be involving a complete stranger and ruining his or her bed. You two bores can be content with whatever you'll be doing."

"Which will be not making utter fools of ourselves, Mal. Is Morila ready yet?"

"Ready would be a bad word to use. Are you sure that this is _all_ I'm supposed to be wearing?" The young attendant stood where Mallene had been a few moments before, horribly embarrassed at the clothes, or lack of clothes that she was wearing. The dress that Mallene had picked out barely covered any more skin than the commando's dress, and to Naylor it looked as if a little pull on any of the straps would have the asari exposing more skin than an Omegan asari stripper in a private booth.

"Relax! There's a coat by the exit that you can put on."

"Oh, does that make up for the fact that my, you know, breasts are barely covered by anything?" The attendant cautiously made her way down the stairs, checking her dress with every step.

"Not to dampen the fun, but we need to be getting on the way. Our skycar's waiting outside and I don't want to spend all of Tevos' credits, I mean my salary, on fuel."

"Yeah, we should be going. The club's opening soon and we need to get in line." Naylor and Serenya walked out of the apartment, followed quickly by Morila, who tripped over her feet every five steps. Mallene hung at the back, picking up the attendant every time she fell over. The skycar was idling outside, and Naylor took the wheel, programming in the destination – the nightclub called Purgatory. As the skycar began flying its way through the traffic in the upper wards towards the Presidium, Naylor watched the traffic flying between the skyscrapers jutting up from the Ward arms. Barely a week before and those skycars had been replaced by the ducking and weaving forms of fighters, shuttles and gunships and lines of blinking tracer fire. Dozens of the skyscrapers that Naylor's skycar was passing were riddled with bullet holes, workers hurriedly trying to repair the damage to the exteriors of the structures lest the temporary vacuum protection surrounding the skyscrapers give out.

Parts of the Citadel were still being repaired from the damage of the geth attack three years ago, and now the additional damage done by the fighting between Cerberus, Council and C-Sec forces had caused yet more damage to parts of the Citadel that had been repaired. The Alliance, the Turian Hierarchy and the Salarian Union had sent technicians and engineers to repair the major structural damage to buildings, and asari police units, and Alliance Military Police forces, were replacing killed or wounded C-Sec officers in patrolling the streets of the Wards and the Presidium. The damage on the Presidium was far less extensive than what had been inflicted three years before, the vast majority of the work required being simply cleaning up wrecked vehicles or filling in bullet holes, and the Ward arms, while pocket-marked with the usual evidence of fighter and gunship combat and the occasional wrecked vehicle had avoided having several thousand pieces of a synthetic dreadnought smash into them. Most of the repair work was expected to take, Reapers willing, less than half of a year.

The skycar banked into a new lane of traffic, travelling along the ward arm before peeling off to head up to the junction with the Presidium. A quick scan by an automated C-Sec scanner verified that their car wasn't carrying any explosives or large-calibre weaponry, and they were admitted access to the tunnel into Presidium airspace. When the car pulled out of the tunnel, Naylor, Mallene and Serenya were dazzled by the orange glow of the artificial sunset. Morila was spared the momentary blindness, ducking beneath the front seats to retrieve a dropped piece of the jewellery that Mallene had forced her to wear in conjunction with her outfit. As his eyes adjusted to the light, Naylor watched as the skycar flew towards the taxi rank outside Purgatory. The club was yet to open, but its popularity amongst Alliance and Turian servicemen on shore leave, as well as civilians on the Citadel, ensured that the line outside the regular entrance was already folding back on itself a dozen times. But, as the skycar pulled in to land at the rank, Mallene leant forward.

"Hey, I just got a message from the club's owner. Pull us up to the VIP entrance."

"Huh?"

"We just got bumped to the VIP section you human half-wit! How cool is that?"

"Pretty cool, I guess. Pulling up to the VIP entrance then." Naylor took over manual control of the skycar, pulling the vehicle up and away from the taxi rank on the Presidium floor and settling it down outside the VIP entrance in amongst another line of taxis, half way up the Presidium side to where a modest line of guests and other VIPs were waiting to go in. Many of them were Alliance soldiers and off-duty C-Sec officers dressed in similar uniforms to Naylor's, his differentiated from the rest by the N7 red and white stripe down his left arm. As their skycar landed, Naylor triggered the release on the doors before swinging his legs out and onto the metal balcony that was the VIP entrance to Purgatory. When it was being built, the nightclub's construction had seen some incredible resistance from the "established" Presidium residents living around it, but with the support of a number of high-profile backers and the sheer amount of money from the totally anonymous main investor that was poured into the surrounding areas, the residents backed off and allowed the building of the nightclub. Now, they fully embraced the club, though they denied that their support was due to the money flying into their pockets.

As if on perfect timing, the club's doors opened as the four of them stepped from the X3M, and the building surge of music began reverberating through the air. Cheers were heard down at the standard entrance, the lines of people slowly but surely beginning to walk their way into the club and begin the night's activities. A few minutes later, the first of those with VIP passes began making their way through the entrance, presenting their passes to the turian bouncers outside and allowing them into the selective VIP section of the club. As they quickly joined and then reached the front of the queue, Mallene hesitated as the group passed through the door, unnoticed by any of her companions as they approached the bouncers.

"Pass please."

"Huh?"

"Show us your VIP passes. No admittance without a pass, and if you don't have a pass, we call C-Sec."

"Listen, I have here a message saying our normal pass was upgraded by your duty manager, a very damn good friend of mine, to a VIP pass. Now please, let us in."

"I'm sorry, I can't allow you in."

"Aw, shit. Where's your duty manager? I want to talk to her." Thankfully for the group, a human in a clean cut suit appeared behind the bouncers, noticing Mallene in the low light and embracing the asari. The look on the bouncer's face was amusing as his duty manager hugged the person he was stopping from entering the club in the first place.

"Mallene, good to see you! Julius, I had these four upgraded to the VIP list. Let them through, they've got permission." The bouncer let the four pass, Morila growing ever more nervous as they passed through the entrance hall and into the club proper. Placing a kind hand on her shoulder, Naylor smiled as he gently led her to the front of the group, making her the first to enter the club behind the duty manager. As the sliding doors opened, the attendant's eyes widened comically as she took in the neon and laser lights and the writing mass of dancing figures on the club floor below. The noise level jumped immediately as the doors opened, and Naylor could feel the beat of the bass reverberate through his skeleton. The VIP section they were entering out onto was a series of connected platforms held high above the club floor. Each had its own function, some being bars, others seating areas, but the largest ones were the dance floors, and they were already filling up with people.

Morila looked around at the club, her heartbeat a rapid and painful thud in her chest. Out of sympathy, Naylor took the lead, taking the group towards the nearest bar to try and break the asari attendant's nervousness. However, Morila's choice of drink, almost predictably, was something completely non-alcoholic, and despite Mallene confidently proclaiming to the salarian bartender that their first round would be of the strongest non-ryncol shot that the bar had, Naylor told him otherwise, instead buying them all a drink called a Thessian Temple, a mild asari concoction favoured by many bars, clubs and even casinos on the Citadel. He had discovered it during his time as Anderson's runner, drinking with colleagues in the human embassy at a club called Flux down in the Upper Wards. It was something that Naylor drank when he didn't fancy asari honey mead or human cider, as it had a crazy flavour yet it still let him stay on his feet and walk in a straight line after a couple of rounds. But it was a perfect icebreaker for Morila's nervousness, and when the deep blue concoctions were served and drunk by the group of four, the attendant immediately changed gear.

"Oh, wow, this thing's taste is really interesting! What was it again?"

"It's a Thessian Temple, and it's _so_ much less fun than shots."

"Mal, cheer up! We're not here to get drunk and kicked out after fifteen minutes. We're here to have fun, and in your case, get laid."

"My case and Morila's. Wonder whether she actually knows how to fuck anyway." Naylor almost spat out what remained of his drink as Mallene deadpanned the last line. Morila looked horrified.

"Goddess, I do know how to have sex! I've seen videos!"

"Oh, so are you a Fornax subscriber or do you go for the less popular stuff? Oh, I bet she's a Krogasm kind of girl!"

"I do not watch pornography, Mallene Areta! I mean, I've seen some instructional videos when I was at university but-" The slip of the word 'instructional' instantly set off a round of groans and laughter from the rest of the group, though Morila was slow to catch onto their distaste.

"Oh, god, instructional videos? Why?"

"My mother wanted me to make sure that I had knowledge for when I entered my maiden stage. I don't see why it is a problem."

"What were these videos, 'A comprehensive guide to sexual relations'? '101 facts about sexual intercourse'? These are your maiden years – you get that experience. So pick a guy in here and start fucking him till he's unconscious from all the effort." As Mallene tried to point out potential people for Morila to try and hit on, Naylor leant over towards where Serenya was very nearly laughing her head off, the asari's purple face already turning a deeper colour as she listened onto the conversation with intent.

"Is Mallene always this crazy when she's drinking?"

"Yep." Serenya's reply was punctuated when the other commando jumped up and started steering the unlucky and unwilling attendant further down the bar towards where a cluster of off-duty Alliance marines were standing around. "She'll be the first to tell you, rather enthusiastically in fact, that she can hold her liquor to the point where she can stomach ryncol, but in reality she gets tipsy after the first round and, as you humans weirdly say, train-wrecked as soon as she's downed a shot glass. I'm almost tempted to see whether she can get drunk off of shots of flavoured water."

"Oh, this is what I miss. Mallene being her usual self and you being the smart one."

"You miss the days when you were one of Tevos' bodyguards?"

"Yeah, of course I do. I mean, sure I got some weird looks from the other commandos onboard the Destiny Ascension when I arrived, and weirder looks when I became a bodyguard to Celia, but it was interesting and I got to see more of the galaxy in six months than I probably will in the rest of my life."

"Most of those looks were about the fact that a human, and a non-biotic human at that, was given the temporary rank and status of a commando. Everyone on that ship has had extensive biotic and martial training that had lasted for longer than you'd been alive, and then you seemingly waltz in to take a place in one of the most highly coveted bodyguard detachments in asari sapce. Until you showed exactly why you were there, and why you would go on to become an N7 thingy, you were kind of an outcast." Although Naylor knew it was the truth, Serenya's words didn't hurt him in the same kind of fashion as similar statements would. The way that asari commando units forged a bond between huntresses was never come close to by any other military, save possibly the turians, but Naylor had been lucky that the councillor's bodyguards, known amongst themselves as 'The Unlucky Twelve', were far more welcoming than other units on the ship.

"Not to you lot I wasn't, though. I do miss the interesting places we'd visit, and the working on a different ship with a different culture, rules and expectations, but I mostly miss just how fun and enjoyable you and the rest of bunch were to serve and live alongside."

"Glad to hear it. And I enjoyed it too. You thought differently, approached things with a completely different mindset, and I think, no I _know,_ that the asari should be learning from those different kinds of views. Look at the Citadel – Lidanya wanted more ships from AHC to defend the Citadel and more commandos to defend the councillor, but the matriarchs and High Command believed the place safe, despite the geth attack!" A small shriek and a crash from down the bar distracted the commando's attention from the conversation with Naylor, and when he tracked down to the end of the bar where Morila and Mallene had gone off to, he suddenly saw the poor attendant covered head to toe in a dripping concoction of human spirits, Mallene standing nearby with a finger outstretched at a shocked and alarmed human bartender. "Damn, I should probably go stop Mal from getting too violent with the waitress. Be back in a minute. Or several!"

* * *

Serenya had indeed been several minutes, but the asari did return, Mallene now firmly into her pick-up routine and dragging a hastily towelled-down Morila at her side. More often than not, following a failed attempt to pick up a partner for herself, Mallene would play the "Hey, have you met Morila?" card, firmly into the role as the attendant's unwanted wing-asari. Back at the other end of the bar, Naylor and Serenya were holding a good conversation, neither yet ready to head on out to the dance floor which was getting even more packed by the minute, off-duty soldiers and officers freely mixing with civilians in the writhing dances. But when one of Serenya's friends, a human mercenary leader-turned-Alliance advisor named Alison turned up out of the blue, the trio moved their way to a small table outside the platform of the club reserved for the most important of the VIPs.

It wasn't long before Alison was talking about some work she had been doing out in the Terminus Systems, following a lead to an abandoned mining world where her mercenaries found a dig site overrun with husks. The story was a good laugh, mostly at how the mercenary leader constantly tricked and, however impossible it seemed, deceived the husks with traps, diversions and ambushes within the confines of a crumbling dig site. Alison was an infiltrator by trade, preferring to use her extremely wide range of technical skills to whittle an enemy down bit by bit until he or she (or it) crumbled in a final killing blow.

Serenya and Alison had met when the former was on shore leave on Illium a year ago, a few weeks before the Nasurn incident. Alison had been using the colony as a stop-over during a trip back from the Terminus Systems to the Citadel, where she was to pick up a new contract with a high-paying employer. They had bonded over their mutual enjoyment of Japanese culture, the human having Japanese connections back in her family's history, and Serenya was a fan of samurai, sake and the like. Serenya wasn't alone amongst the asari in finding a fascination with human cultures – after the rather violent and unexpected arrival of humanity to the galactic stage, intrigued and adventurous asari had flocked to Alliance space. Human culture and history were being taught by human teachers to packed classes in asari schools, and from past experiences, were it not for the war this trend would have continued for a very long time.

Naylor was less interested in the conversation, only listening enough to comment at opportune moments. Instead he was thinking about what Liara had said two days ago about Aria and Ambassador Irissa. Despite his best work, he hadn't found a good way of getting the information to Tevos or any of the people that Shepard was hoping he could tell. But there was one thing that he hadn't been counting on – Aria, despite being smuggled onto the Citadel in a transport chartered for "refugee" reasons by Irissa, was irritated by being mollycoddled by the Ambassador, who had hidden her away in the depths of the asari embassy. The Pirate Queen (a name that Liara had slipped when Naylor had called her up a day ago for advice on the situation) was demanding that her stay could be spent in somewhere more public, where she could meet those that she was counting on for "shortening her stay on the station". Though what that meant, Naylor was only just about to find out in the most coincidental form possible.

When it came to Serenya's turn to get the third round of the night, Alison slunk over around the table to sit closely to where Naylor was, in direct line of sight to the VIP entrance to the club. The mercenary's attention was now fully focussed on the door, but she was perfectly aware of everything happening around them. Naylor couldn't help but think that the mercenary was there for another reason than just a normal night out.

"So, how do _you_ know Shepard?"

"What?"

"Oh, I should probably reintroduce myself then. Kasumi Goto, professional thief and former squad mate to a certain human Spectre."

"Err, what?"

"I served with Shepard when she was trying to destroy the, ah yes, Collectors." Kasumi smiled, flicking up the hood on her bodysuit and smiling from the shadows underneath the cowl.

"Ah, right. So you know who I am, right?"

"Oh, definitely. You're Staff Lieutenant Peter Naylor, N7, serving with the Normandy. One of your marines trod on my foot while I was tailing Shepard on a hunt for an indoctrinated hanar."

"Which one?"

"A ginger one, quite small flaring her biotics quite wildly while she was walking."

"Cleveland then. She does that a lot."

"What, flaring her biotics?"

"No, treading on peoples' feet." The thief laughed, with the purple stripe on her lower lip bending as she smiled. "So why are you here then?"

"Shep has had me tailing Aria T'Loak since she arrived on the Citadel. Kind of like how you're monitoring the connection between Irissa and T'Loak for the Commander as well, but I'm doing it while cloaked. You should give the asari credit, they do know how to make an infiltration slightly less standard-fare than your usual high-security facility."

Naylor laughed for more than one reason, although the thief didn't know that. "I'm not one of the sneaking about types. Too few explosions."

"That's definitely Shepard's style. There was this one time I was on a heist with her helping, but she ended up destroying a bank of fuel tanks, several heavy mechs and a Mantis gunship. It was fun though." A bit of motion around the VIP entrance caught Kasumi's attention, but when two turians walked through the entrance portal into the club. She turned her attention back to Naylor, taking her eyes away from the entrance. "Aria T'Loak is supposed to be being moved tonight from the asari embassy to this club. Coincidentally, I did some digging overnight with Dr T'Soni's help and found out that she's the club's main backer. You could even say that she's the owner with the controlling share that she has."

"But why move from the asari embassy to a club? This kind of location's far less secure – anyone could walk in, make their way up to the satellite platforms and assassinate her from amongst the crowds."

"Aria's always been a figure that demands public attention. Afterlife, her club on Omega, is quite probably the most ostentatious and over the top place in the galaxy. It exudes everything about her, especially her one rule." Kasumi laughed as she said the last few words, finding the rule to be particularly stupid in her own opinion.

"And that is?"

"Don't fuck with Aria!" The voice carried over the sound of the club's reverberating music, instantly drawing the pair's attention back to the door that they had briefly been distracted from. "You should know that by now, Vani. You still owe me." The speaking figure marched over from the entrance, the crowds instinctively scattering from her path. Aria's image exuded the same confidence that her words did – black, form-fitting leather trousers, a black leather corset and a contrasting white jacket. She carried no weapon, but from what information Naylor had gathered or been given by Liara, her biotics could be considered to be the equal or better of any in the galaxy. In a straight up fight, only the late Matriarch Benezia had been able to best her, the pair fighting when negotiations to stop the brutal expansion of Aria's criminal empire out from Omega came to a violent head. But Aria's biotics were not the only weapon in her arsenal – in a previous life as a commando, she had been considered a crack shot with any weapon she laid her hand on, yet the best weapon in her arsenal was her mind. She was able to outthink her opponents and outmanoeuvre them with barely a conscious thought, and it was that aspect that had kept her in control over Omega for over four centuries, and were it not for Cerberus' actions, she would have continued to control it until her most-likely-natural death.

With her human and turian bodyguards following far behind, staring vehemently at the soldiers and officers inside the club, Aria strode from the entrance portal and headed up towards where Naylor and Kasumi sat, peeling left into a reserved section . She was shadowed every step by another asari and a set of commando bodyguards, the lead one wearing a hooded cloak over her features. This was the asari that Aria had called out as Vani, and to Naylor, he knew that was the one and only Vani Irissa, asari ambassador to the Citadel. It was at that point that Naylor realised exactly how he could get the information to Tevos without incriminating Liara in any of this.

"Serenya, get over here!" The commando turned back from the bar as Naylor spoke into a hastily connected video call. Running back to the table, Naylor had already begun formulating his plan of action. "Kasumi, can we get a listening device to trail Aria and eavesdrop on their conversation?"

"Ten steps ahead of you. I placed one in the reserved section's couch. Should be able to hear most of what they're saying."

"Perfect! Serenya and I will remain here and, as covertly as we can, record the situation. Kasumi, do whatever you see fit."

"I think I'll record things from up on the dance floor. Here, I have just the thing for you." The thief reached into one of the many pockets lining her outfit, revealing what was a miniaturised version of a video recorder. Small enough to be hidden amongst other objects, it was far better than an omni-tool in the situation. "You can fiddle with the settings, but it should centre on the listening device I planted."

"Did you think of everything Kasumi?"

"No. I did a job with an old partner of mine that was just like this. I just had a hunch this kind of thing would happen."

* * *

**Day Sixty Three. Citadel Space Station, Serpent Nebula**

Naylor hovered over Tevos' desk as the audio and voice recordings loaded on her terminal, the councillor still unawares as to what Naylor was about to show her.

"Kori, what are you trying to show me?"

"Just wait Tevos, it's just finishing loading." The progress bar on the terminal rose to the 100% mark as the video finished loading, the audio file synching properly and ready to play. Serenya and Mallene were waiting outside, flanking the door to the office and stopping any unwanted people from entering the office. Morila had also been refused entry by the two commandos when she had arrived in an attempt try and keep what was about to be shown to those that knew about it. Mallene's attempts the night before at trying to pick up a fling for the night had failed, and the commando had walked in on the eavesdropping attempt in its dying stages. Morila, however, had been uncannily successful herself, arriving to the asari embassy over an hour late with her clothes trashed and smelling of sex.

Naylor hit play on the video.

* * *

"Aria, I do not owe you anything."

"Oh please, Vani, you still owe me for giving you the support of every asari in the Terminus Systems during your little election to the position of councillor. It's just you refuse to accept the fact that you do and besides, I count every time that I haven't decided to lay waste to parts of your precious Council space as a favour you owe me." The Pirate Queen leant back into the orange sofa in the reserved section, one leg crossed over the knee of the other. Her posture exuded confidence, and Irissa, still standing in front of her, felt it.

"Those votes that you promised never mattered. I lost that election by billions of votes, and I had to live with the shame of returning to a job that I was never destined to take. I am still far better than Tevos for the job of councillor and yet she still occupies the office instead of me. Even the weasel Udina was better than her."

"Perhaps you should stop complaining about a situation that you think is bad. I for one think Tevos to be a good Councillor – she hasn't yet tried to encroach on my realm and hasn't tried to break my one rule."

"Your one rule is irrelevant while you are on this station, Aria. We have laws. Were it not for the fact that I owe you a long overdue favour, you would be incarcerated for crimes against the asari republics stretching over the centuries of your dominance of Omega, just like your pawn Sederis."

"Jona Sederis is not my 'pawn'. She was a deranged fool of a commando but she was never my pawn." Aria dismissed Irissa's words with a casual wave of the hand, prompting another sneer from beneath the ambassador's cowl. "She was more of an adversary, always pushing her subordinates on Omega to try and claim more of the station for themselves, but from what I hear, your incarceration has turned her into something far less sane."

"Yes, her tendencies have turned from plotting her escape to plotting an eventual campaign of violent revenge killings. How do you even know that?"

"Your 'secure' embassies are less secure than you think. I have, at times, had an… interesting acquaintance with one of your secretaries. She does find Omega's facilities to be particularly enjoyable."

Irissa flared her biotics, angry at the way that the Pirate Queen so casually dismissed everything she said with a damnable smirk on her face. Even now as she quickly glanced around the club, everyone in the crowds looking on at the conversation looked at Aria with fear, but the Queen captivated their collective attention. "Which of my secretaries?"

"None of your business. So Vani, tell me exactly how you plan on making my life for the next few months hell."

"As per the terms of our _agreement,_ you will be remaining here until you wish to resume your crusade to take back your pathetic excuse of a space station. If you wish to take time out of the club, it will be done so with a bodyguard of commandos from the embassy's detachment. Other than that, I understand you own this club, so do whatever you wish." Irissa's voice was distant,

"And what happens when I do wish to retake Omega then?"

"You will be escorted from the station to a dock where you will be taken via one of our shuttles to whatever ship you are taking, which will anchor outside of a predetermined perimeter held by the Citadel Fleet." As Irissa finished, Aria's attention had already wavered. The Ambassador knew that Aria would not pay one iota of attention to the terms, but to declare them in full view of others (even if they were just some random drunks and her own commandos) would be useful if the opportunity to rid the galaxy of the infamous T'Loak presented itself. "Is that clear?"

"Yes."

"I will be in touch later."

"Maybe I'll be here." The Ambassador left with her commandos, walking away out of the reserved section and up past a table where two humans and an asari sat, chatting away loudly over the music reverberating through the club. Aria waved over one of her bodyguards to where she was sitting. "Find me some Noverian rum in this piss hole."

The guard ran off, quickly barging his way through the crowd around the bar before, after a quick browse of the bar, reaching over and grabbing the bottle of rum standing tall on the shelf behind the bartender, chucking a credit chit behind him as he walked back to the reserved section. After a deathly stare towards the table he had just passed, where three sets of eyes followed his every move, he returned to his mistress and passed her the bottle. Aria took one swig, curled her mouth in distaste, and lobbed it straight towards the table sitting just outside the reserved section, landing right in front of the male human sitting there.

"You there, the human lieutenant. Shepard's XO." Aria's voice cut across the music and the vibrant noise of the club, slicing like a knife through butter. Nobody around the reserved section could _not_ hear it, and that made Naylor's stomach plummet with dread. The half-offhand comment that followed didn't give him much confidence either. "Over here, I want to talk with you." When Naylor didn't move, the purple asari became insistent. "Here. Now."

At the second call, Naylor knew his time of resisting the Pirate Queen's call was up. Signalling behind his back to Serenya to keep an eye out in case he needed a quick biotic-based get away, Naylor made his way down the steps towards the asari. One of Aria's guards made to grab him by the wrist, planning on stopping the Lieutenant so that he could perform a scan, but the N7 grabbed the batarian's wrist and snapped it backwards while keeping his attention firmly fixed on the asari in front of him, the owner of the offending limb howling in pain before dropping back away from the reserved section.

"So you greet someone who is a friend of your commanding officer by breaking the wrist of one of my employees? How touching. I might just keep you around as a, what do you call them, a bulldog to bark at anyone that tried to get too close."

Naylor remained silent, fixing the asari with a completely blank and unwavering stare. A part of this had knew it was coming from the moment that Shepard had given him the task – Aria was not to be messed with, ran the message while dealing with the Pirate Queen.

"You can cut the hostility act. I'm here to offer you something you, or more specifically Shepard, cannot refuse." Naylor's posture and expression didn't change, and Aria smirked at that.

"And that is?"

"My help. You'll know that I no longer hold Omega, of course. That's the only reason why you're here monitoring my arrival on the station. When I was in control of my station, before Cerberus took it, I held the major mercenary bands in the Terminus Systems in check. They didn't mess with anything that I was connected to, and that was a lot. Now however they're running amok, and I need your commander's help to get them united under my banner."

"And why should I care about uniting mercenaries under your banner?"

"Because I am willing to give them over to Shepard and her war effort. You see, sooner or later if you don't win, it won't matter whose side I was on during the war, whether I was neutral or affiliated with either side. Either you win, or we all get killed. Therefore, it is in my best interests to give the three most powerful mercenary groups in the galaxy over to your amassing army, otherwise you may lose and we'll all end up dead anyway.

"I will send your commander a list of the things that I need to do, but once you have been able to unite the mercenaries they will be yours to do with for whatever you see fit, with one restriction."

"And that restriction is?"

"None of your concern. You'll need to speak with Narl, he's currently contacting the Blood Pack for me. My contact within the Eclipse is Sayn, Jona Sederis' second in command following the mess your commander made of her organisation. I need you to release Sederis from C-Sec custody, but you will find it helpful to talk with him for any help. Lastly, the Blue Suns are led by Darner Vosque. Talk with him, get him to see sense."

"And why are you telling me this? Isn't Shepard your 'friend'?"

"The last time I checked, Shepard isn't here. You can tell your thief friend to stop recording as well. I know who she is and-"

* * *

The video recording was completely stopped as soon as Aria mentioned Kasumi recording the conversation, and Naylor looked round to see Tevos immediately getting up from her desk. The councillor was out of the office immediately, Serenya and Mallene gracefully moving to her sides as she walked down the hallway and out towards the elevator in the atrium. Naylor immediately followed suit, taking up a position to the left of the Councillor and Serenya as the four walked down the hall towards the atrium and the elevator.

"Lieutenant, take Mallene and go to Commander Bailey's temporary office in the human embassy. Show him this video and ask him for a round-the-clock surveillance warrant on the Purgatory nightclub you were at last night. I will send you my Council authorisation as soon as you arrive there."

"What will you be doing?" Naylor knew that Tevos was being deathly serious, not using the pet name that she had given him a year before. He knew who the councillor was about to see. He just didn't know exactly what would transpire between councillor and ambassador.

When Tevos replied, she almost spat out her words, indicating how betrayed she felt over the situation that had occurred between Aria and Irissa. "I will be finding Irissa's head."

* * *

Tevos walked into Irissa's office with purpose, immediately cutting the Ambassador off from the call she had been taking on her omni-tool as soon as she entered through the door into the spacious working space. The Ambassador was both furious at being interrupted, but fearful as soon as she saw the look on the councillor's face. She knew why and she had a right to feel fearful as such.

"Irissa, really? Aria T'Loak?" Tevos came to a halt in front of Irissa's desk, planting both hands in front of the ambassador and gripping the edge of the wooden worktop. "After everything you said about dealing with the Terminus Systems, you then go and smuggle the most wanted of the Terminus warlords onto my station."

"You have no idea how deep this goes, Councillor. Please, just don't press this."

"Press what, me asking you why you went against everything you stood for when we were running for my spot? I can't and won't believe that you had this change of heart on your own."

"And you're right." Irissa stood up and began pacing behind her desk, her expression suddenly downcast. "I made a deal with Aria during that election. In return for one almightily big favour when I became Councillor, she promised to get me the support of every asari in the Terminus Systems that could still count on the election roster for the e-democracies. I was naïve, thinking I could trust her to come through on that promise. Turns out she did give those votes, it was just that every other asari voted for you.

"I thought that Aria had forgotten about it all until a month ago. Omega had been taken by Cerberus a few days before the Reapers attacked Earth, and suddenly Aria bypasses all of my security, all of the protection to stop messages from people like her from getting things through to officials like me, and tells me that that favour that I owed her was being used. She wanted access for her and the core of her organisation to the Citadel. I didn't want to let it happen, but if I refused my job and frankly my freedom would have been taken away had anyone found out."

"Then be thankful they're not."

"What?"

"Irissa, I cannot forgive you for what you did in the election, and by all rights you should stand accused for that. But I can't afford to lose someone who I can trust, especially not now. I need you on my side, Irissa. The Republics need you."

"You say you trust me."

"Yes, Vani. I can."

"Then you should know what else happened. When Aria arrived, I knew that I couldn't keep this hidden from the public. So I tried, I begged for her to not to reveal anything about how she was on the station. And that led to… to what happened afterwards. Goddess, she has done unspeakable things in the past but to me they all pale to what happened then." The Ambassador covered her face with her hands, stopping Tevos from seeing every detail on her face as tears began to fall. "I tried to hide it behind confidence when I escorted her to the Purgatory nightclub, but every moment it made me feel like a monster, like I was something that needed to be purged from existence."

"Vani, what happened?"

"She as good as raped me, Tevos, but I let it happen. I let it happened and told myself to enjoy it afterwards. And I did. I feel such a fool because I let her do what she did and that I enjoyed it, but ever since I've barely had a moment to think about it. Would you forgive me for that, Tevos? Would you forgive me and still trust me after all that?"

Tevos stopped, astonished at the revelation. One of her closest colleagues, allowing a criminal queen to have her way with her to avoid being revealed for what she had done. While her head said that the ambassador had sunk as low as was possible for what she had done, Tevos' heart was pained for what had happened to her colleague, and the councillor crossed the room and embraced Irissa. "Of course I can." The ambassador buried her neck in Tevos' shoulder and cried, letting the pain of what Aria had done out in her emotions.

Outside the office, a figure jumped from the ledge she had been sitting on into the stream of people walking from their offices and out to shops and cafes for lunch, unnoticed as she decloaked by the rest of the crowd and unnoticed by the security guards as she quite literally appeared out of thin air, clutching a small data core in her left hand. The female smiled beneath her hood, the purple stripe down her pale-skinned bottom lip stretching as her mouth curled up in a wry smile.

* * *

**A/N: **So I wanted to do two things with this chapter. One was to try and work in Kasumi a bit more, after I skimped out a bit with her main mission on the Citadel back in Chapter Fourteen. Kasumi's really fun to write with, and I enjoyed this bit incredibly. The second was that I wanted to begin the rather interesting 'relationship' between Naylor and Aria with the start of her set of missions to unite the mercenary bands under her control. Three missions that Bioware missed a trick with in the Omega DLC…

Oh, on an unrelated note (feel free to ignore this if you wish), if you have Skyrim on the PC, check out some of the alternate player models that you can download from the internet. I found a whole plethora of models for Mass Effect, which (if you search "Heatedpete" on Steam and find my screenshots) include a lovely player model for one Liara T'Soni. I now currently run around the wonderful world of Skyrim dressed as a 109 year old asari from Armali. Life is enjoyable!


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: **The whole Spectre thing is dreadfully underplayed in Mass Effect. The little things, like the volus ambassador mission and the Blue Suns mission, would have been so much easier if there was the same kind of Renegade 'Intimidate' option of "I'm a mother fucking Spectre!" to be used. Then again, it would be rather boring… like a certain German winning every race in a certain form of motor racing…

The bit at the end is setting up something completely unique to this story (at least, I think it is!). The Normandy is a stealth ship, so apart from sneaking onto Menae and sneaking onto the geth dreadnought, that is one feature that is also underplayed in the game. Ignore it if you wish, I'm not that fond of the section anyway (I suck at writing suspense-y stuff, and writing lots of other things beside), but there are enough hints as to what will be going down in a couple of chapters time…

* * *

**Day Eighty Four. Noveria, Horse Head Nebula**

"Commander, Cerberus forces are regrouping on the landing pad. They're bringing in reinforcements from an orbital platform to seal and recapture the base."

"Not if we can help it, Cortez. The AA guns are down, so have yourself and Khan tear up their positions to your hearts' content."

"Appreciated, Commander. We're inbound now." Cortez's shuttle was the first to swing around to face the landing pad, firing its twin mass accelerator cannons towards the Cerberus platoon that was assembling there. The sheer wind that came off the mountaintops threatened to throw Cortez's aim off drastically, but the pilot was able to keep the shuttle, which had the aerodynamic profile of a brick, steady as he opened fire. Khan used Cortez's Kodiak as a shield, pulling in to hover before opening fire towards the Cerberus forces as well.

Shepard watched as the explosions tore through the Cerberus ranks before waving her ground team out of the control centre for the airbase to join the fight. Specialist Warwick, one of Naylor's infiltrators, had already gone out to direct the shuttles' fire towards the landing pads, and though he was a competent and battle-hardened soldier, Shepard didn't want to leave him on his own. Every few seconds, the crack of a sniper rifle firing could be heard by everyone inside the control centre, a sign that the battle was still going on outside and that they were needed elsewhere.

The Spectre was the first one outside the control centre, her Scimitar cradled in her left hand as she clutched a cluster grenade in her right. Warwick was crouching low behind a wall, reloading his Viper sniper rifle with shaking fingers. Shepard immediately thought that he was showing signs of nervousness, but soon after she could hear Garrus swearing from behind her.

"Spirits its cold!" The turian fumbled for his helmet as his mandibles chattered away, pulling it on and realising that it would be no better until his armour could heat the air inside it up. Shepard looked forward, realising then why the temperature was such an issue. A blizzard had swept in, obscuring everything beyond twenty metres and turning anything beyond ten into a barely-visible shadow. Warwick's role was even more important now, guiding the fire from the shuttles that couldn't see the landing pads with the portable laser designator he had attached to his Viper.

"Quit your whinging, Garrus! It's lovely and warm!" Shepard's little joke slightly restored the spirits of her soldiers, a few smiles breaking out behind helmets, but time was against them. "Alright, Warwick and Garrus will provide sniper support from here. Naylor, take Sara and Takeida round the left side and flank the Cerberus forces. Javik, EDI, you're with me."

"What's your plan, Commander?"

"Simple. We go down the centre. Hop to it!" As Garrus edged his way into the cover where Warwick had been hiding, shivering all the while, Naylor led Takeida and Sara out on a walkway to the left, staying low behind a wall and running between cover to mask their movement. Shepard waited for Naylor to mention over the radio that his squad was in position before throwing the grenade she had been holding in her hand for the past few minutes and charging with her shotgun raised. The asari-designed cluster grenade was a less powerful version of their lift grenade, but it was made up of five parts that, through the use of a simple computer system, would split and scatter over a wide area before exploding on contact with any surface. When the grenades exploded, and it was here that Shepard worshipped asari craftsmanship, each sent out a violent pulse of biotic energy, ripping anything near from the floor and tossing it into the air.

In this case a squad of four Cerberus troopers found themselves flung off the end of the landing platform as soon as the grenade exploded. The blue explosions lit up the blizzard of snow in an eerie light, before the shocked exclamations could be heard as the Cerberus troopers realised what was happening. Naylor's team took the cue to open fire at that moment, shooting from their position in the flank towards the targets that Warwick had marked with his thermal scope and laser designator. The conditions were as rough as they could be for fighting at that moment in time, but inside their heated suits of armour, the combined team Shepard was leading was working as if it were a summer's day in mainland Europe.

Which of course, Shepard joked to herself as she lined up a Centurion with her shotgun, would mean that we'd be having this exact weather in the middle of July then. Her shotgun roared twice, taking out the Centurion's shields and then taking him out in the successive blasts. A few shots sparked off her biotic barrier, reminding her that everyone else was fighting just as blindly, but the Spectre turned round with natural instinct and fired a single time in the direction of the shots, being rewarded with a Nemesis' scream in return.

EDI, with her android body's comprehensive optical suite, was extremely competent in the blizzard, able to track Cerberus soldiers from a fair distance, dispatching them with tech powers and a few bursts from her submachine gun. Javik too was strangely adept in the snow, using his particle rifle to target Cerberus soldiers through the snow and guide the fire for Shepard, who would follow the line of the beam with a powerful shockwave. A Phantom, cloaked against the snow, tried to move up and catch Shepard unaware, but Javik's dark channel leapt from the dead corpse of an assault trooper to the Phantom, disrupting her shields and presenting an easy target for Shepard, who quickly stripped the operative's barriers and flung her off the edge of the platform with a shockwave.

"All Cerberus operatives are down, Commander. No more can be seen via infra-red."

"Thanks EDI. Cortez, how are things from up there?"

"Good, Commander. Khan's already going back to the Normandy, but I can't land to pick you up until the storm has cleared out."

"Alright. We'll call you in once the storm starts to thin out." Shepard locked her Scimitar against her back before trudging away back to the control centre, where at least only the wind was causing the temperature to plummet. Garrus extricated himself from his firing position, his normally blue and silver coloured armour now sporting a fresh white coat of paint following the blizzard. Warwick, having been out in the cold a lot longer, was also pulling himself up off the floor, Shepard feeling sorry for the sniper as she saw the outline of where he had been crouching thanks to the lack of snow on the ground under his feet.

"Commander, I'll stay outside and radio in when the storm clears."

"You sure you don't want to go inside and warm up?"

"I'm sitting toasty in here, Commander, but I've done stints in colder weather with worse armour to wear than this. I'll be okay."

"I can't stop you, Warwick. I think Naylor's planning on setting up a portable stove in there at some point, so go in there and grab yourself something hot before you do so. Oh, and military coffee is slightly more palatable than military tea. Naylor's wrong in that regard." The infiltrator ran into the building, snow shaking from his armour as he disappeared from view to catch up with Naylor. "How did you think that thing went Garrus?"

"Good, but how sure are you that you're not dying from frostbite or hypothermia?" Despite chattering away with his teeth and mandibles, Garrus' comment still managed to make Shepard laugh. "How long do you think the blizzard will last?"

"Could be a long time, days even." The turian's groan was comical, and Shepard began making her way into the control centre with a big smile worn behind the mask of her T-5V. Inside, true to her guess, Naylor had already set up a stove, and EDI and his marines all sitting around it trying to absorb some of the warmth that was being emanated from it. "Lieutenant, how's the fire?"

"Good I guess. Would be better if we weren't in the middle of a storm, of course. EDI here says that the temperature outside is minus thirteen, but with the wind chill factored in, it should feel like about minus forty five. Warwick here's a bloody lunatic for taking watch outside." Naylor jabbed a finger at the specialist, who was quickly pouring water from the stove's storage case into a mess tin to boil over the fire, for whatever good that would do against the cold.

"In my cycle, complaining about the cold was met with harsh punishment." Javik spoke up from the corner of the room that he had been standing quietly in up till that point. "As a soldier, you should be disciplined enough to ignore weather conditions."

"In your cycle, you were alive fifty thousand years ago." Naylor's little comment was met with a few 'oohs' from the rest of his marines. Given the reaction, Shepard half expected a joke about Javik's mother to follow, but the subject hadn't been something that had been broached by anyone on the Normandy, often for fear of retribution from the quick-to-anger prothean. "Did the Protheans ever colonise Noveria anyway?"

"No."

"So you can't talk about us complaining about the cold then."

"We colonised worlds that had temperatures far colder than this. On your kelvin scale, we colonised worlds that had surface temperatures below 200 kelvin."

"Did the protheans themselves colonise those worlds, of did the non-prothean protheans colonise them?"

"I do not understand the question."

"It's a simple enough question. Which species colonised those worlds? Actual protheans, or species that called themselves prothean?"

"They were colonised by the enduromi. Their homeworld had a temperature below the freezing point of water, and- what are you doing?" Javik stared as Naylor was typing away at his omni-tool, with his head still focussed on Javik but his hands touch-typing quickly on the device.

"Getting some of this down for Liara. She's interested in it." Shepard saw Javik scowl at the mention of 'the asari'. He hadn't exactly been that forthcoming with the asari in the past when she had asked him anything more than questions about the Reapers, and she was getting to the point where any information she could get her hands on she jumped at. Her reaction after Tuchanka when Garrus, Ensign Copeland and Javik had spent the best part of an hour listing wars from their species' (and cycle's) respective histories, was bordering on rage at the glimpses of prothean history that she had missed, and was now finding out about third hand. "Besides, I can't afford a soldier losing the use of his legs thanks to frostbite. I'm already one down as it is, and Alliance gear isn't specified to much below this temperature anyway."

"He'll be fine. That said, does Huerta Memorial have facilities to deal with frostbite." Shepard deliberately had her radio channel open as she spoke. Her humour was rewarded by an "Oh come on!" from the specialist, standing outside in the most sheltered part of the facility that he could find.

A while later, and Shepard and her team were still sitting around the stove, still talking and trying to make the best of the situation. Warwick had yet to call in from the landing pad that the storm had cleared, but from what Shepard was able to hear over the conversation, the wind was definitely dying down. As if on cue, Shepard's radio clicked into life.

"Shepard, the storm's clearing."

"Call in the shuttles then. We'll meet you outside."

"Cortez is already on the way and- oh shit!" The crash of a landing Atlas sent everyone scrambling to their feet, grabbing their weapons and diverting all extra power to their kinetic barriers. Shepard was first outside, seeing the Atlas in front of her. The pilot turned the walker as soon as she stepped one foot onto the walkway, firing just as Naylor crossed onto the walkway and sending the Paladin diving to the floor, landing almost comically in a large pile of snow before scrambling up and into cover. The chatter of rifle fire gave Shepard the confidence to swing out and biotically charge forward, smashing into the Atlas' kinetic barriers before being violently tossed away into a crate that just stopped her from being tossed off the edge of the platform.

"That never happened before." Groggily, Shepard brought herself to her feet, watching as the rest of her team systematically tore the Atlas' kinetic barriers to shreds. Shepard then saw why she had been tossed so violently away – the Atlas' claw arm had swung around as Shepard had charged, smashing her away like a perfect on-drive towards the boundary. Finding her shotgun lying a few feet away, Shepard grabbed the weapon before watching as the Atlas' kinetic barriers gave out under the barrage of shots and tech powers hitting it. Immediately, EDI, Sara and Naylor all unleashed their arsenal of tech powers, firing superheated incinerate rounds to tear through the walker's armour and damage its components. Shepard quickly seized the initiative, charging forward to grab onto the walker's cockpit and, priming her biotics, she smashed through the glass, grabbing the pilot and tossing him out to skid across the platform.

Naylor was the first to rise from cover after Shepard's charge, the last time she had done that resulting in a chaotic barrage of shots from its autocannon going far too close for comfort to her team. "We're clear!"

"Where the hell is Warwick?"

"Shit, Sergeant, by the Atlas' feet! It must have hit him when it landed." Shepard followed Sara's extended hand, suddenly seeing Warwick's prone body lying on the floor, surrounded by red-coloured snow. Jumping off the Atlas, which thankfully stayed upright, Shepard crouched beside the infiltrator, who wasn't conscious.

"Get Cortez down here now, and prep the medbay immediately!"

* * *

**Day Eighty Five. Citadel Space Station, Serpent Nebula**

With Warwick interned at Huerta Memorial Hospital while his shattered legs were repaired, Shepard had time for other things before the Normandy left again for the front lines. It was thus that she found herself walking into Purgatory, expecting to be assaulted with a wall of noise. Instead, the club was empty and silent, bar the noise from the staff working there and a squad of C-Sec officers waiting beside one of the platforms. Following the gaze of the officer leading them, Shepard noticed the person that was the object of their attention – Aria T'Loak, the former ruler of Omega.

Stepping towards the platform, a C-Sec officer moved to stop her approaching, but the turian quickly realised that she was a Spectre, and he wasn't able to do anything to stop her.

"So you admit you and your thugs are here illegally?"

"Not illegally, but it only took C-Sec three weeks to figure it out." Despite the situation, Shepard knew just from the way that she sat on the orange leather sofa that Aria was in complete control of the situation. The C-Sec officer had no chance of apprehending Aria and the asari knew it.

"I don't care who you are. You're required to go through processing like all other refugees." She waved two human officers forward, one brandishing a biotic-nullifying collar and the other a pair of reinforced handcuffs. Shepard was tempted to intervene, but she stood off to one side. The situation was amusing, to say the least, and she didn't want to ruin another one of Aria's 'scenes'. "Come with me."

"I don't think so. Sheerk, get me the asari ambassador." Aria accentuated the last word, staring straight at the officer in front of her, who crossed her arms and gave a pointed stare at the asari in return, raising an eyebrow in slight confusion. The human standing at the edge of the platform Aria was on triggered his omni-tool, quickly bringing up a hologram of the asari ambassador, Irissa, in front of him. It was then that Shepard noticed for the first time how remarkably similar Irissa looked to Tevos, sharing similar skin colour and facial tattoos. However, while Tevos was always refined and elegant when Shepard had met her, Irissa looked haggard and exhausted on the hologram, as if something had been bothering her. Shepard knew what that bothering thing was.

"Greetings, Aria. Is there something you need?"

"I'm being asked to submit to immigration processing." Aria turned her head only slightly, keeping her stare locked on the C-Sec officer yet giving a bit of attention to the hologram in front of her. Her words were spoken slowly, drawn out with what Shepard could only describe as an audible sneer, the vehemence directed solely at the officer in front of her.

"Of course you are." Irissa's hand disappeared from the hologram as she leant down to touch something that wasn't being picked up in the transmission. Shepard noticed how the C-Sec officer looked on in horror at what Irissa was doing, but the commander noticed another factor in supporting the exhausted Irissa hypothesis – the ambassador's voice sounded tired, the same way that she looked, and her movements were slow yet almost rushed, as if she was trying to expend as little energy as possible in the pursuit of staying awake. "Done. What else can I do for you?"

Aria turned her head to fully address Irissa's hologram, with a slight smile as she knew that her little victory was complete. "Nothing. Thank you." The hologram faded out of existence, leaving Aria to turn her full attention back to the officer in front of her. "I think we're done here." With a huff, the officer left with her squad, shaking her head as Shepard approached the Pirate Queen, now dismissing Sheerk away from the area. "Enjoy the show, Shepard?"

"I guess there's only one rule on the Citadel, huh?"

"I suppose. I hate this place. So sickeningly uptight." The asari's words were laced with contempt, accentuating every word with disdain. "Of course, you know why I'm here, thanks to your little Lieutenant. Cerberus has stolen Omega from me, and the Illusive Man is squarely at the top of my shit list. He will pay for every second I have spent in this bureaucratic hellhole."

"How did Cerberus defeat you? I thought I warned you against their influence the last time we spoke."

"Deceit, distraction and a big fucking army." Aria stood up, looking over the floor of the club far below and standing with her hands clasped behind her back as a mockery of the posture that Irissa had made seconds earlier. "Cerberus went through the Omega Four relay, something 'went wrong' and they lured me away to one of my mines in the asteroid belt where they tried to ambush me. I escaped, but Cerberus had already laid siege.

"By the time I returned, they had already entrenched themselves and were threatening to blow up my station."

"So you want revenge then?"

"Hopefully that means we are thinking alike. You were always too… stuck up when we met a year ago." Aria slowly walked back to the sofa, settling herself back into its depths before continuing. "I'll take Omega back, but that's not why you're here. My proposition still lies on the table."

"Unite the Blood Pack, Eclipse and Blue Suns under your banner and they support the war effort. If only things were as simple to gain the help of other species."

"Perhaps I wouldn't be speaking to you if that were the case. The asari already gave your species the help it needed at the start of the war, but nothing else really came of your agreement with the asari councillor. I expected better from you, Shepard, but you cannot change the past."

* * *

Shepard had dealt with Narl first, wanting to get the Blood Pack leaders off the station as quickly as she could. With the defeat of Clan Weyrloc on Tuchanka, leadership of the Blood Pack had passed to, of all people, a vorcha, and Shepard had been extremely confused when Gryll had been the one to take command. Evidently he would be relying a lot on Aria giving him directions, for he likely couldn't think past the next few seconds in terms of general strategy. Exiting the apartment, Shepard had ran into a salarian from one of their colder colonies, trying desperately to find schematics for heating units that would keep the next clutch of salarian eggs alive. Shepard had pointed him in Hackett's direction, and with a word to the admiral the Cerberus base on Noveria was being picked apart for anything that could help the Kirosa family survive.

Speaking with General Oraka had been her next port of call after conversing with the mud stain that was Darner Vosque, the Blue Sun's leader. Despite being under the watching eyes of C-Sec, Vosque walked around the refugee camp he was staying in in full armour with bodyguards matching his every step. He was arrogant and possessed the kind of superiority complex that made Shepard despise him even more, even more so with his lewd comments about expecting Aria to 'spread her legs' for him to seal their deal, and his attempt to try and grab a handful of Shepard's backside when she walked away from the man in disgust.

Unfortunately, Oraka wanted to get access to caches of weapons on the Citadel to replace the ones C-Sec and the turian military had lost when the Blue Suns had captured the convoy they were being transported in. That meant speaking to the opportunist that was Kannik, an employee at the Aeghor Munitions shop in the Presidium Commons.

"Listen, Commander. I can't release those weapons, not even for money. You see, the credit will be worthless after the war, and I reckon bartering would be far better an option to look into. If you could find me goods and artefacts that I can trade, then that would allow me to give you those weapons."

"Where could I find these artefacts?"

"I have heard of some in the Kite's Nest. Your ship, with its stealth capabilities should be able to get them for me." The mention of the batarian's home cluster of stars, definite Reaper territory, was the last straw. Being forced to do what she didn't want to do, Shepard reached over the counter and grabbed Kannik by the neck, pulling the short salarian up to her eye level and speaking directly into his face.

"Listen, under Spectre authority I am ordering you to release those weapons. I will not lead my ship into Reaper-infested territory to satisfy your greed. Do. You. Hear. Me?"

"Of-of-of course, Commander! Whatever you say, Commander! I'll have those weapons sent to General Oraka now!" And with that, the salarian rushed off. A few minutes later, a confirmation message from Oraka said that he had just received word that the weapons were on their way, and that the turian was calling off operations against the Blue Suns' leadership for now. Pulling the Spectre card had been something that Shepard had barely done since the Council had made/re-made her a Spectre, and as she made her way to Bailey's office to discuss Jona Sederis, Shepard found herself mulling over an incredibly devious (and uncharacteristic) thought in her head. As she walked away from the Commons, happy that at least in this case, she had an easy route out of things, Shepard quickly typed out a reply to the old general.

_Order that hit on Darner Vosque. Spectre authority._

_Shepard._

* * *

Shepard had a dilemma. Sederis was a lunatic, but Sayn was frankly unable to be even considered as a leader for the Eclipse. The salarian was too weak willed, a toady, to lead a band of often bloodthirsty and war-hungry mercenaries, and the likelihood was that Sayn would lose effective control of the group very quickly, making them useless in the long run for the war effort.

Sederis, on the other hand, ruled her minions by fear, her aptitude for harsh punishments not even being dissuaded by being a member of her own family. When her sister, Tasa, had failed in a mission on Garvug, Sederis had made sure that her younger sibling could never experience any pleasure from sex again. The images that went viral of the mutilation that Sederis had done to Tasa's body had to be forcibly removed from the extranet, as they were far too gruesome for anyone to see. It had made her sibling into a far younger copy of the mercenary leader, both crazy and ruthless and uncaring. But that was why Sederis was a risk – she wanted revenge against the other mercenary gangs for attacks they had made on the Eclipse, and she especially wanted revenge against Shepard, for the deaths of good soldiers the year before.

Unfortunately, the risk of a rogue Eclipse faction far outweighed the risk of a vengeful Sederis, and Shepard returned to Bailey's office to order the release of the most insane of C-Sec's prisoners. Understandably, Bailey was not best pleased about the situation.

"Commander, what can I do for you?"

"Bailey, I'm ordering the release of Jona Sederis from C-Sec custody."

"Didn't she tell you that, I quote, 'heads will roll'?" Shepard remained silent, staring at the C-Sec commander with a blank expression on her face. "Alright, alright. If it will make a difference for the war effort, then you can have her. My officers are getting quite mad with her ranting and raving every few minutes." Bailey began typing on his terminal, Shepard taking it as a cue to leave and return with the news to Aria.

Except the Pirate Queen was one step ahead of her.

"Shepard, I've just had some confirmation that Jona Sederis is being released from C-Sec's custody. Good work."

"Aria, keep an eye on her, or even a restraint if you have to. She's completely insane."

"Restraint, eh Shepard? I didn't know you were into that sort of thing."

"Quit while you've got your mercenary bands. You mentioned that there was a condition involved."

"Yes. The mercenaries are now available for your fleet, but when I take Omega, I want them."

"I suppose that's fair. What about Omega then?"

"I am working on a plan, Shepard. You concentrate on your war."

* * *

**Day Ninety One. Unknown location, probably somewhere in the Milky Way.**

The meeting room was darkened, the only lights coming from the dimmed displays on the walls and on the conference table in the centre of the room. Walls of text covered all four sides, scrolling up and down at the whim of the people controlling the displays from their seats at the conference table. A dozen uniformed figures sat around the table, most focussing on the datapads and holographic displays in front of them, or on the walls covered in text. A few still talked in hushed tones, discussing the topics that had been covered in the hours of the meeting that had passed. At points, all those in the room had been in agreement, and at points there had been heated debates between the assembled persons.

The meeting was nearly over, and the man at the head of the table knew that. Coughing to catch the attention of the people in the room, the hubbub of the room was cut immediately, all attention being focussed on the man now standing in front of the main holographic display.

"Are we finished, gentlemen?" A chorus of murmurs of approval resounded through the other eleven men in the room. "Then everything is settled. We will reconvene in a week with initial projections for troop loss and military gain and start work on the risk assessments."

"Are we really sure that an operation like this can work?" A female voice carried from the far end of the room, the speaker raising herself up in her seat to be better heard by the people towards the front. The head of the meeting rounded on her, accusatory words beginning to be flung across the room like a fierce crossfire

"Why do you raise this when this meeting has been going on for nearly four hours?"

"I-"

"We've been working towards something like this for a long, long while. Despite the setbacks of the past ten days, we are still in a good position given the circumstances."

"I still do not see why we should be throwing resources at this operation when we've been losing men and material at the rate that we have."

"We are going to be doing this because of those losses. An operation like this would be a valuable coup that we haven't yet had during this war."

"But our other plans for doing the same have all been beaten back." Another voice from the back of the room spoke up, this time a gruff male's instead of the original female. "Look at Eden Prime or what's happened on Benning. They've all gone smoothly but then failed after the initial surprise wore off."

"I think both of those happened under circumstances that are far from the norm." The meeting's leader was smug, confident that his plans would go through. To emphasise that, he took a draw on his cigar, watching as the end glowed before dimming as the embers cooled down.

"Then how could we let the events on the Citadel happen?" The initial female raised her voice again, squeaking slightly as she finished speaking.

"What happened on the Citadel was a shock and has put a dent in our timetable, but we are sure that it will not prove a problem in the long run. We'll just have to be more careful about how we handle this operation and the risk that it will be discovered." The last counter-argument silenced the male objector, while the original female still remained standing before dropping down into her seat, defeated.

"Fine. I'm still opposed to wasting resources like this, but I will not oppose the operation itself."

"Well, if that is all settled, our next meeting will be in a week." Nodding to the rest of the assembled people, the man at the head of the table rose as meeting was closed and everyone began filing out. He began walking over to the main display, bringing up the control panel and typing a few notes from the meeting up to the document stored on the terminal there. Another of the meeting's attendants walked up, the female nodding to the meeting's leader as he continued to type on the terminal. "Do you think we can do it?"

"I am certain that, if we are lucky, it will work." She paused, looking towards the leader and cocking her head. "What do you think?"

"I am behind this fully. We have found a weakness in the enemy's armour, somewhere where if we strike, they will crumble and we will win. But we need a distraction somewhere to keep them guessing. And none of the ideas we came up with are good enough."

"So what do you propose sir?"

"A coup de main."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"A coordinated operation would distract the enemy from our true intentions. We launch the coup de main operation to distract any attention from where we will launch the coup de maitre, and while everyone reacts to our first blow, we follow up with the second, far more powerful one."

"It is a sound strategy, but laced with an extreme amount of risk."

"Everything that we will be doing here will be risky." The leader smiled, bringing up a list of names that he had been considering for something like this. The female leant in, glancing at the names and wondering what her superior had in mind. "I presume that this list goes beyond the first choices that you have for the operation?" He nodded. "So who would you suggest that we go with from first glances?" The leader pointed out a few of the names, bringing their files up and discarding the rest into a secondary window on the terminal. As the files were moved about, his colleague caught glimpses of a wide range of people, from every species and a very wide range of worlds besides. The glimpses didn't fill her with any confidence. And when she peered in to take a look at the details on the screen, she blanched. This operation was going to be big, and when it was finished, the repercussions would be felt by all in the galaxy. "Isn't a plan like this going to be, well, a bit extreme?"

"Not at all, in fact it's pretty modest considering what will follow it and some of the things we've tried before. It will just have to be executed very well, which will of course be difficult considering that we're going to be doing this right under our enemy's nose. We'll be stirring the hornet's nest here, and if we're going to succeed, this will have to be perfect." The leader walked from the room, leaving his colleague still staring at the list of names and dossiers on the terminal screen. Though she knew the mission had to go ahead, a part of her realised that, if the distraction failed, good people would be lost in action – people that would be very difficult to replace. She powered down the terminals in the room, following the route everyone else had taken and out into the belly of the station.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: **I'm writing this chapter with a slight revision to the Tuchanka mission – Shepard's squad don't encounter any ravagers on that mission. Instead, there are brutes. A lot of brutes. It is the krogan homeworld, and brutes are half krogan…

Expect another couple of chapters for Isolated Occurrences to be posted in the next few days. I've been having a nightmare over the last few days with writing anything that isn't the moment where Naylor and Liara actually get together (spoiler alert - it's not for a long while yet!), but I've got a few good ideas for Naylor and Tevos meeting on the Citadel and Shepard's confrontation with Benezia on Noveria.

* * *

**Day Ninety Six. Uttuku orbit, Ninmah Cluster**

Naylor grimaced as the last of the shards of rock were pulled from his thigh. The entirety of his left leg was a mess of open wounds and escaping blood, but Chakwas was moving quickly to seal the wounds and prevent him from losing consciousness due to blood loss. Frankly, at that point, unconsciousness was more preferable to having to watch his leg being prised apart by a pair of tweezers that were searching for indistinguishable pieces of rock. Beside him on the table beside the operating bed lay two dozen already removed pieces, all coated in the glossy red of human blood. Naylor wasn't trying to notice them, but there were few things that could hold his attention away from what was happening in his leg.

Naylor's marines had been tasked to the limit since Noveria, and though with Cleveland now back in their ranks, they were still without a replacement for Symonds and having Warwick taken out of action on Noveria two weeks when an Atlas fell on top of him was not helpful, the walker shattering both his legs. It was lucky that he didn't end up permanently losing his legs, and instead would be out for the best part of a month. It had forced Naylor to have to rethink the way that his squads were made up for combat operations – did he go for two five-man squads, or stick with two four-man squads and have a two-man reserve? He chose the latter, reforming his squads into one squad under himself and Sergeant Roberts and one squad under Sergeant Takeida and Corporal Atkins. The two marines in reserve were cycled in and out of the squads after missions, replacing anyone with injuries or anyone who was physically spent in the fighting. For now, Naylor was one of those cases, likely being bedridden for the next few days or so thanks to what had happened with his leg, while the other patient in the medbay, Specialist Wallace, could well be out for longer, acid burns covering a large part of his body.

Shepard's own team was struggling as well, with Ashley still suffering from a lack of fitness after her injury had kept her bedridden on the Citadel for the best part of two months and both James and Garrus suffering from fatigue following the many combat missions they had undertaken. Since curing the genophage, things were less peaceful aboard the Normandy, and the ground missions were being launched thick and fast as part of wider campaign goals or to relieve the pressure on planets' defenders with surgical strikes against critical targets. The Spectre was presently in the medbay, helping out Chakwas by dealing with Wallace's burns. She understood that the faster Naylor's team had a backup soldier, the better a situation it was in.

"Lieutenant, you do me the honour of not gracing my medbay as much as Shepard does. But why is it the case that whenever you do come here it is for something dreadfully serious?"

"Can't pin that one, Doctor."

"The last time you were here, you brought me a specialist with crushed legs. The time before, it was for a dead private and a specialist with a cracked shoulder blade and internal fractures along her collarbone. Now you yourself are wounded and you have another specialist with acid burns across his left side. I should prescribe you a rabbit's foot for whenever you come into this part of the ship." Though Chakwas' tone was far from jovial, Naylor knew that a part of the doctor was joking about the whole situation.

"Perhaps that could work."

"Alright, the removal of the rocks is finished, but I'll need to apply a few stitches to some of the major wounds before you can leave. Remember to apply medi-gel and no strenuous movements of the leg for at least a day. I will want to check everything tomorrow before clearing you for full duty."

"No placing me on a light duty list?"

"We do not have the men to do that, and I'm afraid that we'll have to make do with a slightly wounded officer instead of a perfectly fit one." The doctor spoke as she took the automated stitching machine and lined it up with Naylor's wounds. The device began its grizzly task, pulling together the wounds with the bio-synthetic threads while simultaneously applying a numbing agent ahead of the path of the stitching needle. For Naylor's part, each break in the skin caused a wince, despite the numbing caused by the deployed agent. Chakwas laughed at this, having seen soldiers of every shape and size go through the medical bays where she had worked in her time. Naylor was just the same. "So how exactly did you get pieces of rock embedded in your leg then?"

"Well, it's a long story."

* * *

Cortez' Kodiak touched down in the canyon where Aralakh Company had made their camp and were waiting for Shepard's arrival, close to where the Krogan scouting team had set up a temporary base of prefabricated buildings and huts. From what the surrounding terrain gave away, the Krogan had found the reapers and chased them, cannibalising their own equipment to aid their fight. That particular facet of the preceding events was revealed to the Alliance reinforcements as Shepard stepped out of the shuttle, seeing the mess of discarded equipment lying about the LZ.

Ahead of them, a cluster of mostly helmeted Krogan warriors held their ground as they eyed up the team landing on the surface, not knowing whether to attack or stand down over the arrival. With Shepard were Liara, Garrus, EDI and Javik, while Naylor's squad was made up of Roberts, Specialist Wallace, and Sara, Naylor's combat engineer. Naylor's collection of marines all carried assault rifles, Naylor with his usual M-96 Mattock while Wallace and Roberts, as was their personal preference, carried Vindicators. In the absence of a dedicated heavy weapons gunner from both his team and Shepard's, Sara had been asked to carry an experimental heavy assault rifle, the Cryo Striker, in lieu of her normal choice of weapons and miniature deployable turrets, though she had the sense to take the N7-issue Eagle that Naylor had offered her out of sheer necessity.

"Team Two better get moving Dagg, you're late. Yes, the Alliance shuttle just arrived. You see anything, let me know."

A bit of movement from up ahead caught Naylor's eye, and the Krogan warriors parted to reveal what Naylor presumed to be their leader. Plated in silver armour with a blue power core set in his chest, the krogan leader had little armour covering his arms and a patchy and unformed plate on his forehead, compared to the solid ones that Naylor could see on the other krogan warriors around him. But the intimidating features were nothing compared to the bellow that erupted from the krogan's mouth as soon as he noticed Shepard stepping from the shuttle. "Shepard? Shepard!"

The commander ran forward towards the krogan, crushing (or attempting to) the fellow warrior in a tight bear hug, made stronger by the automatic assistance that the servos in her armour provided with every movement, however little. The commander had long ago replaced her Alliance-issue N7 armour with a custom made T-5V battlesuit early on during the war, taking the monumental power that N7 Devastators could wield and modifying it to allow her to focus her biotics through the suit. The T-5V gave her extreme power, strength and durability, while the modifications allowed her to use her biotics without being limited by the suit. One particular aspect that Shepard loved was the ability to flash step with her biotics, making miniature biotic charges of only a few metres in length to duck out of the way of enemy fire or quickly transition into cover. In all, the combination of biotic vanguard and T-5V battlesuit was so devastating that the Alliance was considering it in the wider theatres of the war, however expensive the measure was.

"Grunt! Great to see you again."

"And you, battlemaster. Your krantt seems more powerful than ever."

"You know me. Grunt, meet Liara T'Soni, she's new… technically. Then there's Javik, he's a prothean."

"Prothean, eh? So like the Collectors?"

"The species you refer to as Collectors are indoctrinated members of my species, krogan. They are not prothean anymore."

"Yeah, yeah."

"You remember Garrus, of course, and then there's EDI."

"The computer. I remember her, always talking, never shooting."

"Perhaps I can make amends for that. It is good to see you again Urdnot Grunt."

"Yeah, yeah. Who are the other four?"

"Lieutenant Naylor, Sergeant Roberts and Specialists Sara and Wallace. They're new, as part of the Normandy's dedicated marine squad."

The krogan walked forwards towards Naylor, looking him over with a glance of the eyes before sniffing at the armoured human. "He smells too clean."

"He's already killed a Councillor, Grunt."

"A Councillor, eh? Hehe. I think I like him." The krogan turned around, walking back through the dispersing crowd of krogan warriors. Shepard and the eight other members of the away team followed, being pointed by the commander into a prefab while she followed Grunt to the edge of an immense sinkhole. "This is Aralakh Company, the finest unit of krogan in the galaxy. They would be a fine match for your krantt Shepard."

"Perhaps we should test that out someday! They don't all look like they come from the same clans." Shepard took a look over the assembled soldiers, all clad in black armour but sporting clan markings on their shoulder pads. She couldn't recognise most of them, but one or two stood out from the mess. "I think I recognise some Clan Namkor markings on a few of them."

"Aralakh Company is Wrex's idea of making peace with the other clans during this war. Krogan from every clan are sent to join, but only the best are chosen. Me, well Wrex made me leader when I returned after we fought the Collectors. He said that I represent the krogan race's future, but it is because I am the strongest. This will the first good fight since then."

"So how do the Krogan treat you?"

"I got some scars to earn my place here. Some still treat me as if I am a child. They say that as a 'tank-born' I am not worthy of holding the name Urdnot, or even fighting in Aralakh Company. Others respect me for killing the Thresher Maw during my Rite of Passage. They are the krogan I like." He peered down into the sinkhole, sniffing. "This place smells bad, Shepard. Like an old wound. Our scans say that these tunnels all lead to a central point. If we're lucky, it's a nest."

"Makes sense. It's good to see you, Grunt. So, where do you want us?"

"Where you do best. Fighting!" Grunt clapped Shepard over the shoulder, almost sending her tumbling down the cliff into the sinkhole. Steadying herself, the commander made her way back to the prefab where the rest of her team was waiting. Naylor and Sara were checking over the Cryo Striker, making sure the internal mechanisms of the weapon were functioning properly. Garrus was stocking up on thermal clips and grenades, discussing the krogan forces with EDI. As soon as she entered, the conversation stopped and Shepard waved everyone outside.

"We're heading out." Naylor and Sara led the group, the latter shouldering the Striker and loading a first thermal clip into the rifle. The prefab that Grunt wanted them to move through looked precarious, perched on the edge of the sinkhole as it was. "Watch your step. Garrus and EDI, take the rear with Roberts and Wallace. Once the rest of us through, you guys start making your way over. Don't try and follow us if we fall."

"Aye, Commander."

"Yes, Shepard."

Shepard led the creep through the prefab, keeping as far to the right and as far from the edge of the sinkhole as was possible. "Keep to one side. Don't want to fall down."

"You've jinxed us now, Shepard."

"Shut up and walk." Naylor stepped into the prefab with Liara and Sara close on his tail. Instinctively, when a tremor coursed through the prefab, Liara's hand darted out and gripped Naylor's left wrist, which had been trailing behind him as he sidestepped through the hut. His right hand shot up and grabbed one of the metal spurs hanging from a damaged section of roof above him, cursing when it fell from the hole it was stuck in and then cursing again when he realised that it wouldn't have mattered were he holding on if the prefab were to tumble down into the sinkhole. "Naylor, less holding hands and more walking!" Shepard had spied how Liara had Naylor's gauntlet in a death grip, and the pair shared an awkward glance before the asari released Naylor's wrist.

"Sorry Lieutenant. It was instinctive."

"Don't worry, Liara. Let's just get out of here in one piece." Up ahead, Shepard was getting ready to make the leap from where she was standing at the far exit of the prefab to the other side of the sinkhole. It was a two or three metre jump at a considerable angle – difficult in the best of circumstances, but being a biotic and with the powerful motors in her T-5V battlesuit, Shepard was better suited to reaching the other side than others. In an unspoken agreement, Naylor knew that the Spectre would risk herself to get the rest of the group across safely, using her biotics to pull the rest of the group across once she arrived. But as she took a few small steps back, ready to run up and take the leap, a misplaced fall of her foot sent her body, battlesuit and all tumbling to the floor.

The prefab took the full force of her fall, suddenly beginning to pitch over and slide down at an angle into the base of the sinkhole. Naylor grabbed onto one of the vertical partitions in the building with his left arm, mentally issuing a command via his omni-tool for his armour to tighten his grip on the wall via the miniature motors in his gauntlet. The metal began bucking under the digits on his gauntlet, the grip soon becoming impossibly tight. Sara had the same idea, jumping towards where Naylor was gripping onto the partition, locking her gauntlet onto the wall and staying there as the floor began to fall away from her. As the prefab continued to teeter across precipice of the sinkhole, Liara suddenly lost her footing and began to slide down towards the open edge of the prefab. She screamed as her boot began sliding on the floor, catching Naylor's attention not a moment too soon. He shot out his other arm and grabbed the white armour around her wrist, the asari's hand immediately snapping up and gripping his own gauntlet. The asari looked up with wide eyes, her attention flicking between Naylor's grip and the edge of the prefab.

The hut violently tipped over for the final time, the friction between the rocks on the cliff and the metal of the prefab disappeared and the hut suddenly dropped like a five-tonne metal stone into the depths of the sinkhole. Naylor's own grip on the prefab's walls prevented him from falling with the prefab and being dashed against the floor, and he quickly locked his armour's motors to absorb the impact when the prefab crashed into the floor. He tried as much as he could to make sure that Liara's own fall was as free from violence as possible, pulling the asari up at the last moment and pulling her up to the same level as the wall he was holding on to. He glanced around, seeing Javik floating down with his biotics, but when he saw the Spectre, she had been thrown several feet free of the structure.

When the structure settled, Naylor freed himself from the wreckage, his armour unlocking and allowing him to fall the short distance to the floor with a barely audible thud. Liara soon dropped down the same way, a light grunt escaping her mouth as she dropped to the floor. Naylor turned back to the asari, briefly running a scan for broken bones or internal injuries. She waved him off, helping Sara down from her handhold on the wall, while Naylor ran over to where Shepard was lying face down on the floor. The commander's battlesuit was scratched and scuffed, but it was undamaged, and the commander lifted herself up from the ground before Naylor was even able to reach her.

"Shepard, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm a bit dazed but fully fit. Anyone else injured?"

"Sara and Liara were roughed up a bit in the crash but they're fine. Javik was unharmed – he floated down into the wreckage with his biotics when he was thrown free of the prefab, but I haven't seen him since. I'm fine, thanks for asking. But I don't think we can get out of this sinkhole. Air's too unstable, could cause a Kodiak some serious problems if it were to try and descend down here."

"Aye. Take Liara and Sara and form a perimeter around the area. I'll search for Javik and try and see whether Grunt can get down here or vice versa." Naylor nodded, running off towards where Sara and Liara were dusting themselves off clear of the destroyed prefab. Shepard made her way back to the wreckage, quickly finding where Javik was standing amongst the broken metal, trying to find his particle rifle.

* * *

The first encounter with Reaper forces was almost a relief from the tense and jumpy start to the mission. Everyone, even Shepard, had jumped at the first little noise from any quarter, and in every case bar Javik, heart rates were soaring. Chakwas would definitely be wanting to know why the bodies of the team Shepard had on the ground were kicking into a chemical overdrive.

The three Reaper husks charged around the corner into a hail of weapons fire from Shepard, Liara and Naylor, the slugs shredding the converted humans as they quickly fell. Shepard quickly made her way around the corner to find herself in a long cavern with two routes through it. A rock bridge could take Shepard's team up and over the area, using the height as cover against any Reapers defending the far exit of the cavern. The tunnel underneath the bridge was exposed to the far end, but if the Reapers could shoot at the team, the team could shoot back. Shepard took the bridge, peeling round to the side with her squad following her.

Naylor and Sara hung back, covering the team's rear, when they heard a scrabbling noise below. Shepard peered over the side of the bridge, suddenly snapping back and firing her Tempest in anger down at whatever was below. She was rewarded with a screech as an explosion rocked through the bridge, causing everyone to stumble. Shepard twisted around, chucking a cluster grenade to Naylor before throwing one of her own down into the tunnel below. Naylor primed the grenade before throwing it as well, the blue glow of the biotic explosions lighting up the cavern around the squad. A final squeal could be heard in amongst the sounds of the explosions, and Shepard quickly jumped down to inspect the handiwork. Along with the rest of the team, Naylor jumped down only to look in confusion at the corpse of the creature they had killed.

"What in hell's name is that?"

"I have no idea-"

"I know what it is." Shepard cut Liara off, raising a hand to the side of her head and opening a radio channel to the krogan team moving across the surface. "Grunt, Rachni presence confirmed. Extensive Reaper modifications. They are highly dangerous." Shepard stood over the corpse of a dead Rachni husk, kicking the body to check whether it was, in fact, actually dead. A small hiss came as her biotic barriers were suddenly hit by a trickle of the Rachni's blood, the acidic substance fighting against the disintegrating properties of the barrier.

"_Finally, something to kill!"_

"Don't get too cocky. We were able to ambush one but it still put up a fight in close quarters. Any sign of the Reapers your end?"

"_Nothing here yet. We just lost a krogan to a sinkhole. A bad way to go."_

"Keep up your pace, Grunt. We'll rendezvous further into the tunnels." The commander cut the communications channel, looking around at the group surrounding her. Liara and Sara were planting a series of thermal charges to clear the next wall of impenetrable webbing. Javik was standing around, while Naylor was checking the dead body of one of the Krogan scouts for supplies. Turning the heavy body over, a datapad suddenly fell from the Krogan's grip. The Lieutenant studied it, quickly waving Shepard over to where he was kneeling down.

"Commander, take a look at this."

"What is it?"

"It's an audio note, addressed to someone named Ereba. Sounds like an asari."

"Kind of sounds familiar. Can't place where, but take it anyway and we can do some digging on it later. Come on, this way." Shepard led the squad deeper into the caverns, flashlights and weapons scanning every quarter of the caves that they were walking through. Grunt, Aralakh Company and the rest of the ground team that Shepard had brought down to the surface of Utukku were marching their way down into another entrance to the caverns, a good kilometre from the sinkhole that Shepard and co had fallen down, but their progress was slow, emerging sinkholes taking their toll on the krogan numbers.

"Shepard, there's more of that webbing ahead."

"I see, Liara. Anybody have any more ammunition for the Firestorms?"

"It appears your primitive tendencies for pyrotechnics have cursed us, Commander. Nobody has any ammunition." Javik's little joke brought a few chuckles from the group, everyone enjoying it instead of Shepard, who scowled behind the

"Very funny Javik." Shepard looked around, trying to see whether there was any way that she could get through the webbing without manually having to cut a hole in the synthetic strands. Sara, however, made her way from the back of the group to tap the Spectre's shoulder plate.

"Allow me, Commander." Sara levelled the Cryo Stalker and fired a trio of rounds from the grenade launcher, coating the centre of the webbing in a bose-einstein condensate which quickly froze the surrounding webbing in a coat of ice. She nodded towards the webbing, Naylor taking the cue to fire his Mattock at the surface, shattering the frozen strands and sending the remains tumbling to the floor. "Dealt with."

"Impressive. Sara, I want you and that rifle in the middle of the team. Liara and Javik will use their telekinetics to herd any Reaper units into groups. You freeze them with the Striker, and Naylor and I can take them out once they're blocks of ice. Happy?" The squad all voiced their agreement, Javik the exception, instead simply nodding his approval, and the squad continued moving their way through the caverns, Shepard in the lead. Naylor was just behind the Spectre, Liara hanging by his shoulder as he advanced with his Mattock raised to his shoulder. The asari held her Carnifex out in a loose two-handed grip, ready to either fire it or drop it and quickly have both of her hands available for using her biotics.

After smashing their way through more webbing with the help of the Stalker, Shepard had found another Firestorm on a dead krogan's body, and immediately afterwards the squad exited out into a large underground canyon, bisected by an underground stream. A sparse scattering of rocks and fallen boulders covered the area between where the group were and their obvious next waypoint – a cave entrance in the far wall. Shepard began taking a few tentative steps out into the open, suddenly flash-stepping back with the aid of her biotics and screaming for everyone to take cover where they could. A trio of explosive rounds crashed into the boulder the commander had dived behind, splintering the rock and sending shards flying across the canyon. Naylor and Liara dived at the same time into the same piece of cover, the asari raising a barrier to cover them both while Naylor quickly flung up his omni-shield over their heads, peering through the translucent orange barrier at the Reaper ambushers firing at them from the other side of the canyon.

"Shepard heads up, three Rachni husks and four cannibals, fifteen metres up from the riverbed and dug into a natural balcony." A movement below the ledge caught Naylor's attention for a few seconds, before he realised what the movement was. "Add three, maybe four husks to them as well, down on the floor on the opposite side of the stream."

"I can't see the ledge. Javik and I are pinned down Do what you can and give us time to reposition, and watch those husks!"

"Will do! Sara, Liara. Four husks in the open, fifteen metres across the stream." Without a word of confirmation, Sara and Liara sighted towards the Reaper husks and let loose with their weapons, Sara's Stalker freezing two and slowing a third, which was cut down quickly as Liara's Carnifex barked in her hand. Naylor cut the fourth down with a shot to the head, before switching his aim back to the cannibals and rachni husks on the ledge. His next few shots did no visible damage, either hitting rock in a cloud of dust or sparking away off the Reapers' armour plates. Liara had no better luck, and Sara couldn't draw a good enough shot on the Reapers for her Stalker to do any damage.

"We're getting nowhere like this, Lieutenant!"

"I hear you! Liara, when I say, hit the ledge with a singularity and try and pull the cannibals out of cover and into our line of sight. Sara, you and I will take them out and give Shepard and Javik a chance to reposition and cover our next bound forward. Got it?"

"On it!" Liara clutched her Carnifex in her right hand and extended her left, focussing as she formed a singularity behind the balcony's rocky edge. The cannibals were pulled out of their cover by the gravity well, only to be frozen by an exploding cryo round from the Striker and shot through the skull with Naylor's Mattock. As the rifle fire from the Reapers died down, Shepard took the chance to run forward, firing her submachine gun wildly towards the now-partially visible Reaper forces, largely in vain, but a lucky shot pierced one of the Rachni husks' frontal sacs with a loud squelch. Javik followed her forward, using his particle rifle to disintegrate one of the helpless cannibals before dropping into cover as the wounded Rachni fired towards him and the Spectre.

"Naylor, we're still pinned down but we can see the Reaper forces ahead of us. Take Sara and Liara and get moving to the other side of the canyon!"

"On it! Sara, provide suppressing fire with the Striker and start bounding forward, cover to cover. Liara, on me. Let's go!" Naylor's omni-shield sprang into life, covering both himself and Liara as they ran towards the other side of the canyon. Liara's biotics flared into overdrive, the asari ignoring the pain throbbing in her head as she hurled warp fields and telekinetic throws towards the Reaper forces while her barriers violently slapped away or disintegrated any shots that came close to the pair. They were working well as a pair, Naylor calling on his experiences of combat and Liara on the training of her mother's commandos in the heat of combat, but neither noticed as a fourth Rachni husk zeroed in on Shepard's team from behind.

Three explosive rounds smashed into the ground around them, smashing cover apart and splitting the floor wide open. Shepard barely had time to watch as more shots hit the same spot as the last, the Spectre shouting out a quick warning to everyone else as the ground shook with every impact. And then they fell.

* * *

**A/N: **I'd just like to say how this story has already garnered five thousand views since its been released (which makes it far more popular than anything else I've done on the internet), and to say a massive thank you to anyone who is still sticking with this. Here's to the next five thousand views!


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: **Okay, this is the last chapter in Galaxy at War that I'm going to be posting for a while.

Well, sort of.

I won't be moving on to the next part of the story, which is completely new, but one thing I will be doing is going back and adding in three new chapters to the story for Palaven, Sur'Kesh and Tuchanka. This will cause a lot of you an incredible amount of annoyance as the only way that Fanfiction allows me to do this is to delete every chapter I've posted and then add in the next chapters in turn. I'll only start this when I upload the new additions, but the way it's going to work is that I'm going to get rid of every chapter after Chapter Four and then reupload the chapters with the new ones added into the mix. You'll be able to see the new ones as they will have Palaven, Sur'Kesh and Tuchanka in their respective titles (so the Palaven mission will be Chapter 5 – Palaven, Sur'Kesh will be Chapter 6 – Sur'Kesh and so on).

I originally skipped these out as I couldn't make any headway on writing the missions and I hated the work I had done on them. However, since deciding to revisit them (thanks to a bit of prompting from Theodur), I've actually churned out 5,000 words on Palaven and 2,000 words on an odd version of the Sur'Kesh mission. At this rate, expect the mass of story alerts to drop on your email account's doorstep on either Sunday or Monday. Likely the latter...

* * *

**Day Ninety Six. Utukku orbit, Ninmah Cluster**

Naylor struggled to pick himself up as the dust settled on the top of his chestplate as the motors and servos in his leg plates failed to respond. A couple of groans could be heard from around him, but with his ears ringing and his vision blurry, he couldn't tell who they belonged to. All of a sudden, a white armoured hand waved itself in the middle of his field of vision, and acting impulsively Naylor reached up and grabbed it. The owner attempted to pull him up, straining against the dead-weight of Naylor's malfunctioning suit of armour, but failed, and the pair crashed to the floor in a clatter of scraped plates and broken pieces of rock. He thought he heard Liara cry out in pain immediately after the white figure fell, but with everything else going on, he wasn't sure.

Somewhere out in the blurry gloom, Naylor heard the distinctive retort of gunfire, the deep booms from Claymore, Graal and Scimitar shotguns and the repetitive chatter from assault rifles. Voices could also be heard – the low growls and roars of krogan battle cries and the high pitched screeches and screams of Reaper ground troops. The ground shook as explosions from grenades reverberated through the caverns, and tiny pieces of rock pattered down onto the floor and onto the armour of the soldiers of Shepard's team.

The form in white had conveniently fallen on the one part of his armour that Naylor could actually move, and after the attempt to try and get him up had fallen straight over to land and crush his right shoulder against the floor of the cavern. It served to stop the Lieutenant from being able to move in any meaningful manner, but he was at least thankful that his arms weren't dead as a result of the body's positioning. His vision clearing, Naylor looked to the side and saw that the form was indeed Liara, her armour broken and torn in places and the surface thoroughly ruined across the board.

"Who's up? Who's up? Anyone injured?" Shepard's disembodied voice carried over the din of combat, but worryingly it wasn't being played out over the radio in Naylor's helmet. Instead he was hearing it from how loud the commander was having to shout to be heard.

"I am fine, Commander. Your primitive allies may need some more help, however."

"I'm five-by, Commander. Just a little dazed and I've lost the Striker somewhere."

"It's here, Sara."

"Means nothing actually, the ammunition for it has disappeared somewhere and it's useless without it."

"_Shepard, what was that?"_

"Slight cave in. Nothing too major, but we're alright."

"_Good. I didn't want to have to dig you out." _

"That hurts my feelings, Grunt."

"_Yeah, yeah." _A figure cut through the dust-filled air and almost tripped over where Naylor and Liara lay immobilised on the floor. The distinctive form of Shepard's T-5V quickly ducked towards where Naylor and Liara were, ducking to a crouch and immediately checking on Liara's prone form first, rolling her off of the side of Naylor's chest and placing her face up on the rock to one side. It was then that Naylor saw a gash down one cheek, purple blood oozing out from the wound and dripping down onto her chest. The commander began applying medigel to the wound, but Liara waved her off, gesturing towards where Naylor's armour still prevented him from getting himself up.

Shepard ran over and tried to lift the lieutenant off of the floor, using her biotics to boost the strength that she put into the job, but Naylor's armour still remained stubborn, keeping him on the floor for the entire time.

"Lieutenant, do you mind getting up yourself?"

"Leg servos are out. Sorry."

"Let's see what we can do." Liara crawled over, looking towards Shepard who nodded with an unsaid response. The Spectre took Naylor's left side while Liara took the right side, and as one, they both pulled. Their combined strength was easily enough to pull the lieutenant up from where he lay immobilised on the floor, quickly bringing him to a sitting position as another torrent of dust came down on their heads and helmets. The explosions were growing even more regular in their frequency, and the sounds of combat grew louder with every second that passed. Shepard turned, peering through the dust and seeing something that caught her immediate attention.

"_Shepard! We're blocked by Reaper tech and being overrun!"_

"We're on it!"

"_Move it, Shepard!"_

"Just hang on, okay? Javik, Sara, there's a Reaper barrier blocking Aralakh Company's approach down this hallway. Find it and take it out! I'll be following." The sound of boots running through the dust faded away into the sounds of combat, but Shepard remained in place, still holding Naylor upright with Liara's help.

"Liara, can you walk?"

"I think so, Shepard. My armour's battered but I'm fully functional."

"When we meet up with Aralakh Company, I want you to take Lieutenant Naylor back to the shuttle and get yourself out of the line of fire. You're both injured and I want you getting out safely."

"It is just a cut, Shepard!"

"Does that explain how pale your face looks, Liara? And how purple your armour's looking?" Liara opened her mouth to try and argue back, but she caught her reflection in the glass of Shepard's visor, and seeing the colour she immediately realised why the commander was arguing that particular case. Her skin was pale, and the silver plate covering her breast was now a glossy blue.

"I understand, but I cannot move him alone! How am I supposed to get him out of here?" As their barrage of questions continued, neither noticed the movement of Naylor's arms, working at the malfunctioning plates on his legs and trying to work them free.

"Give me a bloody hand for Christ's sake and I can move!" Shepard and Liara both stared at the Lieutenant as the seal of the first malfunctioning plate burst with a hiss. "Break the seals on the lower sides. Once the armour's removed, I should be able to walk properly."

"If you say so. Liara, let's get this armour off." The three of them worked quickly, piling up the leg armour within a few minutes and pulling Naylor to his feet. As he tested out his legs, they buckled slightly before Liara's arm darted under his shoulder, giving him enough support to stay on his feet. Shepard collected up the discarded plates of armour and passed them to where Naylor was standing, the lieutenant collecting them under his arm and holding on to them for dear life. "Alright, let's go. I've got you covered."

Shepard led the bleeding Liara and the struggling Naylor out of the dust haze, and they were greeted by the source of the riot of noise. Aralakh Company was pulling back with Garrus, EDI, Roberts and Wallace in tow, chased by a horde of Rachni husks and cannibals. The krogan had been held by the Reaper barrier at the fork of two tunnels – one where the Reaper forces were swarming up from and the tunnel down from the surface, but Aralakh had now dug in behind a natural rock barrier and were holding the Reapers off well. Shepard's plan, being relayed to the krogan as Naylor and Liara limped forward, was for Naylor and Liara to fall back up to the surface and extract in the shuttle that had been flying with the krogan, with both her squad and Aralakh Company providing suppressing fire for the extraction.

"Alright, everything's set. Grunt, can you give us a distraction?"

"Yeah, we can. Aralakh Company!" The roar of shotguns was mixed with the screams of dying Reapers as Naylor and Liara pulled out from behind the wall of muscle and armour. Shepard, Roberts and Wallace ran out with them, rapidly firing their shotguns and assault rifles towards the enemy and letting loose with their biotics as they did so. The wounded pair were very nearly down the tunnel and out of view of the Reaper forces when one of the Rachni husks turned its attention towards him. A flash of blue was the only sign that they were under threat before the first round smashed into the rock facing behind them, sending shards of rock scampering into Liara's biotic barriers and Naylor's kinetic barriers. The second hit the floor behind them, staggering the pair under the impact, but the third smashed into the floor to Naylor's side, the rock spearing straight into his barriers.

"_They're clear! Grunt we're pulling back now."_

Naylor and Liara were nearing the light, struggling against the weight of Naylor's armour and the exhaustion of combat. Naylor's vision was swimming and still dazed from both the fall and the force of the exploding rounds, and as they reached the exit to the surface he suddenly tumbled to the floor, dropping his armour and turning, mid-air, to fall on his back. Liara was very nearly dragged down to the floor by him, instead pulling her arm out from the lieutenant's armpit and gently trying to guide him to the floor with her hands. The result was a clattering of armour plates, both worn and held, hitting the red rock of Utukku's surface. Liara waved a gauntleted hand in front of Naylor's face, but she came to a stark conclusion quickly – Naylor had blacked out.

"Oh Goddess! Shepard? Shepard, Lieutenant Naylor is injured!" Liara's radio bled static as she waited for a reply, but something – the tunnels, the Reapers, or even battle damage could be blocking or have taken out the Spectre's ability to talk over the radio. "Is there anyone there? Hello?"

"_Doctor, this is Lieutenant Cortez. I see you and the Lieutenant's position. I'm coming down. Let's get you two out of there"_

"Thank the Goddess. I don't think I can move him on my own."

"_I'll help as much as I can. Try and get him to the top of the tunnel and I can meet you there."_

Liara waved up at the shuttle in response, forgetting how Cortez couldn't see her out of the window at that moment in time. She began slowly edging the Lieutenant's unconscious body up the slope to the top of the tunnel, heading up to where the Kodiak could pick them up. As the pair approached the precipice of the tunnel, the asari dived down and grabbed the dropped plates of armour that had been discarded when Naylor had fallen. It was then that she noticed something glossy against the cold rock of the tunnel floor, spattered against the ground beside his armour. Gathering up the armour she ran up to the top, dropping the armour down beside him and checking him for wounds. It was then that she noticed the blood seeping up from his leg, flowing through innumerable tears in his armour's undersuit and down onto the ground.

"Cortez!" She pressed her hands against the wound, but immediately realised that the sharp edges of her gauntlets were digging into his skin. Tearing them off, Liara instantly saw how the undersides of her own hands turned from their usual blue into a deep and glossy red. The hum of the Kodiak's engines wormed its way into her hearing, and seconds later were joined by the sound of running feet arriving by her side. "Please, just don't die."

* * *

Naylor had been placed on one of the biobeds by James following the finishing of the stitches on his legs, and then dropped into an anaesthetic induced sleep to give his leg a chance to heal. Wallace's burns were covered in fresh bandages, he himself being placed on an opposite biobed to heal properly with the aid of nanites "donated" by Cerberus when Shepard had taken the Normandy off the terrorists' roll of ships. The adept would be back to full health within a week, far faster than normal thanks to the help of the technology left over from the Normandy's time as a Cerberus ship.

"Doctor, has Liara been in for treatment yet?"

"No, Commander. Why?"

"Nothing. I'll just check up on her in her cabin instead. Unless there's anything else you need?"

"I can handle it from here, Commander. Go and see to Liara." Shepard left the medbay in Chakwas' capable hands, giving the doctor the room to do the work that she excelled in. The commander instead made her way over to Liara's cabin, where she knew that Liara would be working on a dozen projects at the same time, despite her wound and the combat fatigue from the fighting on Utukku. The door opened before the Spectre, and surprise, surprise, Liara was indeed working at her terminal, visibly tired in the way that she almost slumped over her work. The wound on her cheek was visible from the door, a dark purple tear on light blue skin. It was clear from where Shepard stood that the asari had done nothing to treat the wound in the few hours since their return from the surface of the planet, and Shepard was now glad that she had, in essence, stolen a packet of medigel from the medbay for this exact purpose.

"Liara! God damn it, Liara, I told you to get that wound seen to."

"Lieutenant Naylor needed the help more than I did."

"Damn it, Liara! Stop what you are doing right now."

"Shepard!"

"Stop. Your work. Now. I'm going to take a look at that wound, make sure it's not infected and take you back to the damn medbay to get it stitched up."

"Shepard, asari do not have wounds infected like humans and-"

"I know that, but your cellular repair is a lot slower than ours and that means the real chance of infection pretty much remains the same. Just do this for me, alright?"

"Fine, Shepard." The pair sat themselves down on Liara's bed, the commander instantly opening the medigel packet and angling Liara's face so that her wounded cheek was facing the Spectre. Tearing open the sachet, Shepard dabbed a few small blobs of the numbing agent onto the skin around the wound and the wound itself, waiting for the expression on Liara's face to change from the irritation of the wound being picked at by Shepard's fingers to the relief as the skin around the wound was numbed. Shepard then took out the clotting agent from the sachet, applying it to the wound and watching as the agent pulled the two edges of the wound together and gripping them there tightly.

"So what have you been working on?"

"I have found the asari that Lieutenant Naylor mentioned – this Ereba. She works as a clerk at the Citadel Gift Shop in the Presidium Commons. I don't know when we'll get the chance to get the message to her."

"Leave that to me. I'll see about it next time I get to the Citadel."

"Thanks. The datapad is by Glyph's mainframe." Shepard turned her head towards where Liara was pointing to, seeing the battered datapad on the top of a stack of pristine datapads owned and used by the asari. "I understand that you released the Rachni Queen, right?"

"Yeah. I made a promise on Noveria to give her the chance to start anew in the shadows of the universe, but I just hope that she wasn't indoctrinated by the Reapers while she was being held on Utukku."

"How certain are you that she's clear of Reaper influence?"

"Really not sure at all. I'm about as sure about her being clean as you are sure about what the Crucible will do when we deploy it."

"Oh." Liara stopped, before the Spectre's infectious smile had her laughing along with the little joke. "Why is that?"

"The last time I heard from the Rachni Queen before this, it was through an asari medium. I saw the dead body of that asari in the chamber where we found the Queen, carved into grotesque fashions and implanted somehow with Reaper tech. It looked to me as if she died from what the implants were trying to do to her body."

"That must rank among the worst ways to go." Liara paused, mentally adding a task for a wet work team to investigate the queen's chamber now that the Reapers had abandoned their operations there. "Shepard, how is Lieutenant Naylor?"

"He's fine. Why?"

"I just wanted to know."

"In that case, his leg will heal, but he'll be off any form of heavy duty for a while. With enough help, he should back in action within a week or so."

"Thank the Goddess. When I saw the wound on his leg, I was scared. Asari are not supposed to bleed that much, and I guess humans are the same."

"Yeah, I suppose." An awkward silence settled between the two, but for Shepard there was something nagging in the back of her head given the recent situation. She then realised the time – had Naylor not been wounded, it was the time that he was supposed to have been working on Liara's network, yet here was Liara throwing herself into the work he was due to do without caring for her own wounds. Trying to lace her voice with as much humour as she could, as to deflect the true intentions of what she was to say with her inflection, Shepard pressed the line of questioning forward. "Liara, are you growing attached to the Lieutenant?"

"I- no! Of course not. It is just that I do not want to have to find a replacement." To Liara's annoyance, Shepard simply stared at her with open eyes. Though Liara didn't know it, her reaction had confirmed something to Shepard, and the Spectre genuinely believed she had been correct in working something out about what the young asari was feeling. When she next spoke, Shepard did so slowly, trying to make herself as clear as she could be.

"You really are, aren't you?" Liara's head snapped towards Shepard in protest, her brow furrowing in both anger and denial.

"Shepard, I am not _falling in love_ with the Lieutenant. You may have been right when you noticed how I was growing attached to you three years ago but this time, this time you are wrong!" Liara stood up, heading for the door to her office. "You are categorically wrong!"

"Liara-" The asari stormed out of the office, heading straight for the medbay where she could have her treatment finished, not knowing that the object of the Spectre's conversation was resting there. "I may be wrong, but I think you are."

* * *

**Day Ninety Seven. Citadel Space Station, Serpent Nebula.**

The Normandy had quickly made a stop off on the Citadel to pick up some supplies following the mission on Utukku. Admiral Hackett had called Shepard to Nova Station for a briefing on a highly classified subject, and though it would be tight for time for the Normandy to reach the hidden base, Shepard believed that the Normandy could pick up some more provisions and supplies from the Citadel's docks rather than having to restock from the Alliance's stocks of tasteless rations, which seemed to be growing worse in quality by the shipment. The Spectre had given everyone bar those on resupply duty an hour to conclude any business that they had on the Citadel, but if anyone was late returning, they would find the frigate away from its moorings and flying towards the Argos Rho.

Such it was that Naylor found himself half-running, half-limping through the Presidium Commons, forgetting about the potential damage to his legs as he hurried to complete what he had set out to do before rushing off to the soon-to-depart Normandy. As he turned down past Apollo's café, he quickly made a change of tactic, turned and ran over to where Matriarch Aethyta was waiting beside the bar, having just finished her shift as the afternoon turned into evening. The asari saw his approach, but made no attempt to acknowledge the running form of the human as he ran headlong into the bar.

"Aethyta, can you help me with something?" Naylor's voice was breathless as he spoke to the bartender. Seeing his situation, the asari quickly leant over the bar and grabbed a bottle of water with her biotics, flinging it into the human's hands.

"Kid, slow down and take a breather. Your translator's having a fit."

Taking a quick drink from the bottle, Naylor was thankful for the asari's quick thinking. Taking a few breaths to steady himself, he began again. "Listen, I need your help. I can't divulge everything, but it's pretty important."

"Give me the basic parts and I'll see whether I can."

"No time. Normandy's leaving and I have about five minutes to wrap things up here before starting on my way back."

"Fine." Before Aethyta could ask where the human wanted to go, however, Naylor was taking off, waving her onwards with a hand signal. "Fuck, I'm not running!" The matriarch began following as fast as she could, thankful that Naylor slowed down immeasurably as he made his way into the crowds of people milling around the shop fronts on the level down from Apollo's. She caught up as he approached Nos Astra Sporting Goods, and it was then that she noticed a datapad in the lieutenant's hands.

"Excuse me. I'm really sorry to interrupt, but are you Ereba?" Naylor had made his way over to one of the asari working on the store, a young dark blue matron with unusual gold facial markings. At the mention of her name, the asari broke her conversation with a customer and focussed her attention on the human. From where she stood, Aethyta could see how badly affected the young matron was – her eyes were ringed with purple, her skin looked really unhealthy and the shadows beneath her eyes were a stark contrast to the rest of her face. Immediately the matriarch drew a correct conclusion – she wasn't sleeping, and that was because of someone in the war. It was all too obvious.

"Yes. I'm really sorry, but I have a customer and I can't afford to lose time."

"I'm really, really sorry, but this can't wait. I, uh, do you have a back store room? Somewhere where you keep stock items?"

"Yes, why?"

"This really deserves some privacy." At Naylor's last few words, both the human and Aethyta noticed a slight change in how the asari's expression faltered. Her eyes widened, and her jaw fell slightly, beginning to tremble slightly.

"Of-of course. Please, come this way. There's a store cupboard back behind the counter." Ereba retracted the door to the back of the store from its housing, allowing Naylor and Aethyta to move behind the counter and out of view of the public. Ereba's shift manager, tapping away at a terminal in the back areas of the store made to protest at the uniformed human and an unknown asari walking through her store, but when Naylor silently raised a finger in her direction, the asari understood Naylor's reasons for being there immediately, moving to take Ereba's vacated place at the counter.

The group arrived in the store cupboard, Ereba quickly waving them through as soon as she had made sure that the room was empty of anyone else. The asari pulled up three containers for them to sit on, but Naylor motioned towards Aethyta to shift closer to where Ereba was sitting. The matriarch understood now why Naylor had brought her here. Her heart began to pound away at the inside of her chest, knowing the feeling that was to come for the asari she was now sitting alongside.

"So what is this about?"

"Ereba, two days ago a Krogan and Alliance team was sent into the Attican Traverse after a unit of Krogan scouts. There is no easy way of saying this, and I am truly sorry, but on Utukku, in the Ninmah Cluster, the Krogan scouts were attacked by Reaper forces." The change in Ereba began as soon as Naylor mentioned the words 'Krogan scouts', the asari's jaw suddenly hanging agape and trembling of its own will. As Naylor continued, she raised her shaking hands in front of her face, tears forming as her eyes welled up. "Your bondmate, Charr, was killed on the planet."

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no." A single tear fell from her eye, quickly being wiped away as Aethyta offered a helping hand towards the matron. "Oh Goddess, Charr. Goddess no, not you Charr. Please Goddess, not my Charr!" The tears now streamed down, and out of instinct Ereba latched onto Aethyta's arm. The matriarch paused for a few seconds before embracing the asari against her own chest.

"Ereba I'm really sorry. His spirit will have gone to meet his ancestors." Aethyta's comments worked to soothe Ereba's feelings, and the matron's cries subsided, replaced by muffled sobs through the material of Aethyta's sleeves.

"There was also a recorded message that we found on a datapad addressed to you. Charr kept it with a holographic picture of the two of you together. I can leave the datapad here for you, if you'd like."

"No."

"Do you want me to take it or-?"

"No. I, could you play the message for me?" Naylor nodded, bringing the datapad out from behind his crate and handing it to the asari, clicking play on the holographic interface as he pulled back his hand.

"_O Blue Rose of Illium, if these humble words reach you, then I have joined my ancestors. My dream was to be by your side, a weed beside your beauty, twining together in the warm Tuchanka sun. But if my last days must be with krannt instead of kindness, still, I will remember the perfume of your scent and the soft touch of your petals. Let my broken bones build a wall around your garden, so you and the flower we planted together can grow safe and strong."_

When the message finished playing, Ereba had once again begun crying into Aethyta's shoulder, bringing up a fresh set of convulsions. The matriarch gently stroked Ereba's back, the calm touch working wonders for the young matron's feelings. Subconsciously, Naylor was aware of the pressing constraint of time, but he knew that to leave now would be utterly disrespectful of the bereaving asari in front of him. Ereba steeled herself, using Aethyta's care to ward off the pain that she was feeling inside.

"You have a daughter?"

"Not yet, but yes, Lilia. I got pregnant just before I last saw her father. Charr and I met on Illium three years ago. Were it not for Commander Shepard, I don't even think I would be sitting here today, like this at all. We bonded last year, went to Tuchanka where he rejoined his clan, Urdnot. I was so afraid when he went to war, I haven't eaten or slept in days and I've been thinking all the time about whether he will come back to me. And now he's gone, what will I tell my daughter of him if she asks? What will I say to Lilia, that he died fighting a war which we may not win? What do I say?"

"You can tell her of how he died facing the enemy not just as a warrior but as your bondmate and her father, caring about the two of you every step of the way." Aethyta was surprised when she heard herself speaking in support of the asari. She had never seen the kind part of herself in so many years that it came as a complete shock, but she knew that at this moment, her words were supporting the weight of the young asari, and she knew she had to continue. "Your daughter will grow up with stories of her father as a hero; someone who fought the Reapers and helped beat them. You will meet again, whether under the Goddess' eyes or with his ancestors, but he never stopped loving you, and you never stopped loving him."

Ereba tried to stand, but her legs gave out under her and she toppled back, clattering into the crate she had previously been sitting on. The contents spilled out, and Naylor quickly tidied them away into the crate before helping Ereba back into a sitting position. "Thank you. I don't know what to say."

"Take the time you need. I will be here. Lieutenant, I know you have a ship to catch. Don't miss it."

"Yes. Ereba, I'm so sorry for your loss. My thoughts are and will be with you and your daughter." To his surprise, Ereba stood up, quickly taking him in a hug as tears continued to fall, now being soaked up by the uniform over his chest.

"Thank you for doing this, Lieutenant. May the Goddess go with you and bless you." She pulled back from the hug, a smile briefly crossing her face before she was forced to blink away a few more tears.

"May the Goddess also go with you, Ereba. I do need to go, but I wish you well." Naylor slowly turned, walking out of the store room and out onto the Commons before breaking into a run as soon as he left the sight of the store, heading straight for a skycar that could take him back to the soon-to-be-departing Normandy. Back inside the store room, Aethyta and Ereba sat down on the two intact crates, the latter still stifling away tears and the former trying her best to console the younger asari. They stayed that way until Ereba's tears dried and her sobs subsided, late into the night when darkness had fallen on the Presidium and many people had retired to their homes and apartments to escape the trials of the war.

* * *

**A/N: **I reckon I've said this before, but the next chapter in the storyline is where this story begins to delve straight into AU territory. Like, really off the beaten track kind of stuff. I don't think I've seen anyone else do anything like this, and I read a lot of fanfiction! I'm intrigued to hear what people think of it when the time comes to upload it - I feel like it could either go great or go absolutely appallingly with everyone saying "Go back to Mass Effect 3's storyline you idiot!"...


	25. Chapter 25

**A/N: **Quick game - the three names for the three operations that I use in the chapter are all related…

I found it quite funny, knowing of course what was to come, when Theodur reviewed a few chapters back expecting Cerberus to be up to something original. That brought a smile to my face. Cerberus? Nah, I'm one of the good guys! I had planned after deciding to do the bonus chapters that I would go and do this chapter and the next one in two sections. It works far better as a pair.

* * *

**Day Ninety Eight. Nova Station, Argos Rho cluster.**

"It's time. Seal the doors." Two marines marched up the tiered seats of the temporary briefing room and slid to a halt at the top, nodding ceremoniously to the marines guarding both the inside and outside walls of the briefing room. The automated doors slid shut, and the sound of deadlocks slamming down and blocking the mechanisms could be heard throughout the chamber.

"Doors are sealed, Admiral."

"Thank you Private." Admiral Hackett stood up, walking to the briefer's position and clearing his throat. There was no microphone, omni-tool or form technology to make him be heard within the room. He would be relying on his good old fashioned vocal chords and lungs to make himself heard in the room, and thankfully he knew from decades of service that he could do just that. "Gentlemen, welcome to Briefing Room One. As of now, everything that is said in here is considered to be classified above the level of Top Secret."

The assembled crowd all nodded or voiced their assent, and Hackett had to raise a hand to quell the murmurs before he could continue. Looking out over the crowd, he reckoned that he would end up needing all the fingers on one hand to try and count the number of species in attendance. Asari matriarchs and commandos, salarian STG officers, Turian Blackwatch agents, drell assassins and human officers and Special Operations experts were sitting in front of the old Admiral, and in that very room Hackett knew that the galaxy's finest were assembled in one single place. The significance of where they were was made even more pungent by what was being built in the wider system around Nova Station – the dimension-breaking form of the Crucible, flanked by dozens of human, asari and turian drydock ships, improvised space stations and supply ships and surrounded by the Turian Seventh Fleet, a mighty formation given the honour and the burden of guarding the Crucible. Alongside them were the Alliance's smallest fleet, the Eight, which was guarding Nova Station and the wider system.

"In a week's time, the Alliance will launch Operation Cobra, an offensive operation designed to oust the Reapers from the Petra Nebula." Hackett paused for a few moments, letting the information soak in for both himself and for those in attendance. On everyone else's' part, it was the fact that the Alliance was ready to actually undertake their first real offensive of the war, following the Krogan 'Miracle Offensive' a few weeks earlier. For him, it was the fact that he was signing the order to launch what could potentially be the operation that would properly break the Alliances' forces for good, following three months of surviving by the skin of their teeth against the far superior Reaper forces. "Taking part will be the Alliance Sixth and Seventh Fleets along with ten Alliance and two Turian divisions. The objective will be nothing short of securing the system and purging it of Reaper forces and holding it for enough time to restore Elysium's orbital defences. To this measure, the asari authorities on Lusia have been constructing a series of new defensive platforms for use over Elysium if we are successful or over Lusia if we are not. Let me be clear – Cobra is a do or die mission for the Alliance.

"Details on the operation will not be released to those in this room. In fact, Operation Cobra is not the purpose of this meeting. To facilitate the deployment of a very large portion of available and importantly mobile Alliance forces to the Petra Nebula, the Alliance has to pull units from front lines all across the galaxy. This is leaving us with manpower deficiencies on fronts that are crucial to the war effort. As part of the overarching web that is Operation Cobra, we are launching two additional operations designed to distract the Reapers' attention and solidify our front lines. These are Operation Chastise and Operation Goodwood respectively." A few murmurs and even laughs from the human officers at the names were met with inquisitive stares from their counterparts from the other species, and Hackett himself smiled with his subordinates.

"Operation Goodwood will be the deployment of small special operations units of four or five into crucial areas on the front lines with the objective of simply holding or delaying the advance of Reaper forces. Our ultimate aim is to try and get the Reapers to divert reinforcements from the Petra Nebula to other areas of the galaxy, but if that isn't the case then we should be able to hold our ground.

"Operation Chastise is the reason why I am calling you all here. To facilitate Operation Goodwood, the Alliance is in dire need of special operations officers. Working with Admiral Anderson over a QEC, we have been able to identify a sizeable number of N5, N6 and N7 rank officers that we can redeploy as part of Goodwood and even train units for involvement in the operation. However, to redeploy these officers requires us to attempt something that we are very apprehensive of doing – we will be deploying small covert units to extract these officers from _Earth._" As he had predicted, the mention of the human homeworld garnered an immediate response from those in attendance. Some of those in the room were shocked, while others were shouting about how suicidal something like this would be.

"Gentlemen! This is not the time to be arguing. Operation Chastise cannot not happen, and despite the risks we are certain that we will be able to succeed in the operation. To this end: Commander Shepard?" The Spectre stood up in the centre of the briefing hall, quickly running down to the centre to join the Admiral at the briefer's podium.

"To increase the chances of success that Chastise has, the SSV Normandy will be the platform for those involved to deploy from. The Normandy is the only ship that is capable of doing this, and she hasn't yet failed us."

"Thank you, Commander. Operation Chastise will take place in six simultaneous locations across Earth's surface to extract a varying number of officers. Fire teams of four will deploy via UT-47A Kodiaks to the surface and then be extracted once their objective is completed. If the Reapers discover the Normandy's location, then Commander Shepard has orders to withdraw her vessel immediately. Any teams still on Earth at that time will be remaining there for the duration of the war.

"The six team leaders are chosen from officers with local knowledge of the area that they will be deploying to. The six locations are as follows: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Fort Louis, France; London, UK; Fort Jackson, UNAS; New York, UNAS and Moscow, Russia. Respectively, the leaders of the teams are Captain Tani, Lieutenant Riberie, Lieutenant Naylor, Captain Mitchell, Captain Webber and Lieutenant Zaitsev."

* * *

"…Lieutenant Naylor, Captain Mitchell, Captain Webber and Lieutenant Zaitsev." In the tiered seats around the Admiral, Naylor was shocked to hear his name being called out from the ranks, as was Ashley Williams, sitting beside him, and Commander Shepard standing down beside Hackett. All three had assumed that they were there thanks to their roles as a part of the Normandy's command chain, Ashley as the Normandy's official Executive Officer and Naylor as the ranking third in command. When Hackett called the six officers down to the briefer's podium, Ashley tried to stop Naylor as he rose from his seat.

"Lieutenant, it may not be you!"

"I don't see anyone else with the name Naylor getting up, Lieutenant Commander."

"This is stupid. You're wounded!"

"I will be fine." Rising from his seat, Naylor began making his way down the steps with the five other officers towards the floor of the briefing room. When they arrived, Hackett quickly directed them to one side of the briefing stage, before continuing.

"Each team leader will be given the chance to pick his or her team from the assembled operatives in this room, with the exceptions of Commander Shepard and Lieutenant Commander Ashley Williams. Their dossiers are available on the datapads in addition to the outline for the mission. As of this moment, all those in this room are considered to be BIGOTed."

"Bigoted?" An asari stood up from the seats, visibly angry at what Hackett had said. Naylor recognised her – Lieutenant Neri, one of the Republics' most decorated commandos. "I take great offence at that! What is the meaning of calling us all bigots?"

Instead of waiting for Hackett to respond, Naylor turned around from the huddle that he had joined. "BIGOT was an old code that the United Kingdom used a couple of centuries back for similar purposes. It meant that everyone on the BIGOT list was above what we classify as Top Secret. Admiral, we already have a similar list already. Why not put us on CATS?"

"Even those on the CATS list aren't aware of this operation, and there is the fact that CATS is Alliance only, so we're making a new list."

"Fair enough sir."

"If there is nothing else, this briefing is finished. Officers, pick your teams and report to hangar bay 116." Hackett made to leave the briefing room as the six team leaders settled down around the array of dossiers and files of the potential team members that they could pick from. But as the admiral neared the seats, Shepard quickly intercepted him.

"Admiral, I have to protest against this."

"About what Commander? Chastise will go ahead with or without your support."

"Admiral, I'm fully behind the operation, but let me go to London instead of Lieutenant Naylor. I've been to London a good number of times before, I know the ground well and…"

"And what, Commander?"

"And I think it would be a waste of a good officer to send him on a suicide mission."

"And you're not a waste of an officer? Shepard, what is your point?"

"Admiral, I want in on the mission instead of Naylor. I have more experience and I've conducted operations like this countless times before – Elysium, Operation Broadside against the Batarians in '75, hell the Collectors last year even. Lieutenant Naylor has great potential, and if I don't make it I have Lieutenant Commander Williams to take over the Normandy with him as the XO."

"Shepard, I support you all the way but I'm going to draw the line at this. In truth, we can't afford to lose any officers like Lieutenant Naylor, but we especially cannot afford to lose you. You won't ever be replaced, but someone like Naylor can." Hackett paused, waiting for his words to sink in on Shepard's behalf. "Listen, according to David and the resistance the Reapers are concentrating in London for some as-of-yet unknown reason. We know that any team sent there will have a bad time, but the resistance has a lot of N5 to N7 rank officers in the area thanks to London being the base of Special Operations Command before the war, and we can take our pick from the available operatives. The group that Naylor's team will be trying to locate are outside of London itself, beyond Service Road 25 in his home town of Amersham. It's a quiet part of the front, comparatively, but it's the easiest way of getting his team in and the N-graduates out. We've been arranging similar plans all across the globe to make the entire operation run as easy as we can."

"I suppose that's fair enough. The Normandy stands ready to give whatever support she can provide, Admiral."

"I understand just how much of a risk this will put on your crew, Shepard. Sol is a cauldron of Reaper activity, so this entire operation could well go south almost immediately, but I have faith. And besides, if things go wrong somewhere, I'm sure you would be able to get a look in somewhere." Hackett smiled, clapping the Spectre on the shoulder as he walked up the steps and out of the briefing room. Naylor walked up behind the Commander, catching her attention as he hovered in the corner of her view.

"Everything alright?"

"No. Nothing about this is alright but I'm going along with it." The Spectre began walking back to the table where the officers were pouring over dossiers. "Personally, I don't want you going on this mission. You're an officer who's got a huge future ahead of him and this kind of mission is exactly the kind that gets good people killed."

"Like your mission against the Collectors?"

"_Exactly_ like the mission through the Omega Four relay. It's tantamount to suicide. But as much as I hate the mission and even sending you on it, I think you're the right person for the job."

"Well, that's a vote of confidence at least."

"Yeah. How is your team going?" Shepard led the lieutenant back to the briefing table, where the final few selections were being made for the six squads of four. The left over operatives, in the know about the operation, were being brought aboard the Normandy as an elite reserve group, and had Naylor not been selected in the operation, he would have been joining his marine team in being dumped off of the Normandy for the duration of the operation.

"It's been a pretty ordered bit of chaos. A few of the more interesting choices have already gone to the teams heading to the Reaper warzones with heavier Reaper presences like Rio and New York. I already know my team is heading toward Amersham, which is outside of London and has been quite quiet on the most part, so that's why I've deferred choices to other teams."

"Listen, don't bolster the other teams at the expense of your own. I want you back, you know that?"

"Yeah yeah. I have got my eyes on a few guys."

"Like who?"

"There's First Lieutenant Hastings, an N7 Destroyer, and Specialist Collins, an infiltrator. Both of them are from the UK, Hastings from London and Collins from Hampshire, but she went to CMA."

"Like yourself!"

"Like myself, aye. They've served together on occasions before, both part of Special Operations Team Delta, and I reckon that that would be a good basis for the team."

"What about biotics?"

"I was hoping that I could help the lieutenant out in that aspect." Shepard and Naylor turned around to see a pair of approaching asari, one instantly recognisable in the patches of light that she walked through as Matriarch Lidanya of the Destiny Ascension. Shepard smiled, having caught a glimpse of the asari hovering behind the matriarch, and with a nod to the matriarch she made her way back towards the team table to talk and plan with the other team leaders.

"Matriarch Lidanya, it is a pleasure to see you again." Naylor smiled back at his former superior officer and benefactor of Project Arvana, the teal-skinned asari looking menacing as she came to a halt just short of one of the patches of light thrown down by the lights in the ceiling. He expected the commander of the Destiny Ascension to simply acknowledge him, given how the matriarch had not often seen or had the chance to get to know the lieutenant on the Ascension two years before, but then suddenly the matriarch caught him in a hug, catching him off guard.

"It most certainly is, although the circumstances are rather poor in retrospect. Councillor Tevos sends her regards, Lieutenant, or should I say _kori_?"

"That's only for Tevos to say. How do you know about that anyway?"

"I was the one to pull Tevos out of her self-dug pit of sorrow after she heard about Earth. She told me about the two of you. Of course, Tela here found out on her own accord."

"It wasn't hard." The distinctive asari Spectre came out from behind the matriarch, smiling at her old friend and colleague who was still trying to sort himself out from the matriarch's embrace. "One look at Tevos while she was in your company during and after the Citadel Coup and I could tell from just how she acted that she was either your mother or your secret lover. It still kind of weirds me out, but then it's not exactly something you hear about every day is it."

"Good to see you too, Spectre Vasir."

"It's always Tela to you, you pyjak. I hear you need a biotic?"

"Yeah but-"

"'But' nothing. I'm on your team." The Spectre smiled wryly, almost filling Naylor with a slight dread of what were to happen if he explained how he would be at least considering the other biotics that were available, but knew that if he did, he'd likely become a smear on the nearest wall.

"Sure. That means I've technically got everyone. But, one problem – Lidanya, how come you're here on Nova Station? Are you volunteering for this?"

"Goddess no, Lieutenant! As head of the Citadel Fleet and the representative for the Asari _and_ the Council here, I'm being kept into the loop with the three operations, so that as soon as they are launched I can relay the mission outlines to the Council and Asari High Command as needed." The Matriarch gave a quick glance around, looking for any Alliance senior officers that were lurking within earshot before leaning in and whispering to the Lieutenant. "I also find it ridiculous that the Alliance hasn't yet contacted the asari for the support of our fleets. I have nineteen asari vessels in the Citadel fleet that will go in to Elysium no matter what."

"I suppose that makes sense. Give the bastards hell, anyway." Naylor glanced at the chrono on his omni-tool, seeing that time was quickly marching on. "Given the lack of time that we have, I'm afraid I'll have to drag Tela off. Mission carries on with or without us."

"I understand. There is one thing I must ask, though, Lieutenant."

"Of course, Matriarch. What is it?"

"My daughter, Nelyna, was in London with her unit when the Reapers arrived. If you find her, please bring her home safely."

"I'll try, and I'm not sure that Shepard would object to getting another asari commando onboard. Well, it was really good to see you again Matriarch, and say hi to Tevos for me." Smiling in Lidanya's direction, Naylor and Tela left the matriarch to return to Shepard and the five other team leaders around the table. Pointing to Tela, Naylor relayed the news that Shepard wanted to hear. "Commander, my team's done. Two N7s, one CMA infiltrator and an asari Spectre."

"Sounds good. All of the other teams are complete and we're ready to go." Shepard turned back to the crowd of those in attendance, and was immediately rewarded with silence where the crowd had been talking in hushed tones between themselves. "Alright, all the teams for Operation Chastise have been chosen. Those whose names are not read out will be forming the reserve team to be retained onboard the SSV Normandy, with the exception of myself, Spectre Williams and those here designated as liaisons with military forces in the wider galaxy. Once the briefing is finished, all strike team and reserve team members will report to hangar 116 as ordered with equipment, and in the case of our turian comrades, dextro-amino rations as well.

"Team One is under Captain Tani heading to Rio. Wallington, Mendez and Neri, you're in Team One, codenamed "Christo".

"Team Two, going to Fort Louis, France, is under Lieutenant Riberie, with Kariah, Damar and Daviau, codenamed "Jaune".

"Team Three, going to London, UK, is under Lieutenant Naylor, with Spectre Vasir, Hastings and Collins, codenamed "Slip".

"Team Four, Fort Jackson, UNAS, is under Captain Mitchell, codenamed "Rebel", with Boone, Hale and Corvus.

"Team Five, New York, UNAS, is under Captain Webber, codenamed "Apple", with Dickinson, Kersey and Truman.

"Team Six, Moscow, Russia, is under Lieutenant Zaitsev, codenamed "Star", with the Kozlov twins and Lieutenant Tolan. The remaining sixteen operatives, you're in the reserve team. When we reach Hangar 116, reserve team please report to Lieutenant Vega. That is all. Briefing dismissed."

* * *

"They are butchering my ship!" That was Shepard's first comment when she saw the Alliance engineers swarming over the Normandy's hangar bay. Following that, she progressively got more and more angry over the work that they were doing, despite the reassurances of their team's chief that the work they were doing would be carried out without mishap. "They have no idea what they're doing! Where's Adams?"

The Normandy sat in hangar 116 on Nova Station, and despite being one of the newest of the hundred and thirty odd hangars on the station it was built no better than any of the others. And by that it meant that the facility, had it been on any Council world in any other time than a galactic war of survival, would have been described as completely unfit for purpose. The only proper commodity that the Alliance Engineering Corps had afforded the space were the magnetic clamps currently holding the vessel in place above the floor and the docking ramp that was allowing the engineers to roll containers directly from the floor of the hangar into the hangar bay itself. The airlock was connected to the station outside with a metal catwalk, held in place via a system of metal wires and pulleys holding it in position, and the exterior doors to the hangar, usually replaced by highly advanced mass effect fields if one were on the Citadel or Arcturus Station, were solid metal panels with vacuum sealing on the edges to keep the atmosphere _inside_ the hangar bay.

When first inspected after its hurried finishing just following the Reaper attack on Earth, Admiral Singh had sarcastically remarked that the station was "a marvel of modern and up-to-date technology." Afterwards the engineers had nicknamed Nova Station "Nueva Estación" in the same heavily sarcastic vein. The non-human visitors to the station failed to understand the funny side of it, though, prompting more than a few explanations to baffled asari commandos and turian admirals.

"I am sure that the work will be carried out to a sufficient enough standard that there will be no difficulties. Besides, why not ask EDI?"

"_Lieutenant Commander Williams is correct, Commander. The changes being made to the Normandy's hangar bay are progressing smoothly, and will likely not require any further adjustment after they're finished."_

"See! It'll be fine."

"Whatever. So what exactly are they doing to my ship?"

"The engineers are modifying the hangar bay to be able to carry a third Kodiak shuttle for this operation. They're adding a new service crane for the new Kodiak on the starboard side behind the original mount. Personally, I think it's quite a useful addition to the ship."

"I'm with the Lieutenant-Commander, Commander. With this, for instance, we could deploy both ground teams in one go and have the current second shuttle flying around as a C2 bird. We have three shuttle pilots onboard the Normandy, so why not three shuttles?"

"I suppose you're right. Still it wouldn't help to check the adjustments as soon as we're cleared to start operation, what was it, Chastise?"

"Yeah, Chastise. Can't help but think that the guy naming the three operations was a British guy with a penchant for 20th Century history."

"Why's that?"

"You probably don't want to know-"

"No, seriously, why is that?"

"Fine – all three operations have an equivalent in World War II. Chastise, our operation, was the Dambusters' Raid, while Cobra was the American breakthrough that led to the collapse of German forces in Normandy. Goodwood was a British attack around the city of Caen that failed to break through, but ended up diverting most of the German panzer divisions from where Cobra was going to hit." Naylor couldn't help but smile on the inside as he splurged out the knowledge he had on the subject – aside from the engineering studies he had taken as part of his courses at the CMA, the lieutenant had always been partial to learning about historical conflicts, both in human history and in the histories of the other species in the galaxy, and a lot of the spare space in his assigned foot locker on the Crew Deck was taken up by datapads filled with books and papers on battles such as Stalingrad, Ypres and Normandy, along with others from around the galaxy, the likes of the Rachni Wars and the beginning of the Krogan Rebellions with the battle on Lusia being of particular interest.

"You were right, I didn't want to know. Thanks for that."

"No problem Commander." Shepard's deadpan response had prompted Naylor to reply in kind, diffusing some of the tension between the Commander and what was happening to the Normandy. Thankfully, given the conversation, that diffusion was something that was very much needed.

"So are we going to board up the teams or what?"

"We're waiting for Lieutenant Naylor's marine detail to disembark before we can move the reserve team onto the Crew Deck. That shouldn't be more than a few minutes, but we can't board the strike teams until the hangar bay has been finished with."

"_The hangar bay repairs shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes, Commander. A final briefing for those boarding the Normandy would be recommended."_

"Good shout, EDI. Lieutenant, here come your marines. You board the reserve team up and shut them in the Crew Quarters until we're good to go. Ash, I want you and the crew to set up temporary quarters in the observation rooms and, for anyone who can cope with the aridity, Life Support. I'll wait down here and get all the members of the strike team onboard as soon as we're good."

"Aye, aye." Ashley took off, running up the catwalks to the side of the hangar and into the belly of the ship via the airlock where she could get the crew to work on the new accommodation arrangements. _"Err, slight problem here skipper."_

"What's up now Ash?" The tone of Shepard's voice was filled with mock irritation, giving Naylor something to smile about as he listened in on the conversation via the radio channel Shepard had quickly patched him into.

"_The lift's down for some reason." _As if reading her fellow Spectre's mind, Ashley adopted the same, playfully irritated tone, causing Naylor to openly laugh, thankfully with his radio set to _not_ transmit anything at that point in time. Shepard, standing so close to the lieutenant, smiled as she tried to hold in her own laughter.

"_Several key parts of the ship have been powered down by myself and Engineer Adams to conserve power. We are currently not drawing power for the lift, engines and weapons batteries among other, less important systems. The Normandy is normally connected to a specialist charging point when docked at a space station or when in drydock, but Nova Station does not currently possess these facilities."_

"Oh well. Ash, Naylor's coming aboard now. You two and the reserve team should take the Jeffries' tubes located in the conference room corridor down to deck three instead of the lift."

"_Got it."_

Shepard cut the radio channel, seeing Naylor staring at her with a quizzical expression. "What?"

"I have five turians, five asari, four humans and two salarians to get through those tunnels, which are built for humans of a far slender build than most of those soldiers. Not to mention the fact that they're all carrying equipment packs that are the same size as they are and are far less flexible."

"If you're so set against crawling through tunnels with a huntress staring at your backside then why didn't you say so?"

"With all due respect, Commander – fuck off." Shepard laughed, heading up the raised ramp into the belly of the Normandy to chivvy along the engineers into finishing the job as quick as they could, leaving Naylor standing at the base. Before he could make his way to the reserve team and get them into the Normandy itself, the incredibly distinctive voice of a certain asari called out from the crowd of soldiers that made up the six strike teams.

"You do have a fine backside Lieutenant!"

"FUCK OFF VASIR!"

* * *

**A/N: **You know the ridiculous thing – because of stuff I've added _after _I've written subsequent chapters, this chapter is number twenty five. In my filing system, this is chapter twenty. I'm not complaining – fifty chapters was always the aim, even though I reckoned at the start that I wouldn't make it, but I'm now on Chapter 25 with four major plot arcs still to go (this, Rannoch, Omega and Thessia. Yes, Omega will feature…). I'm looking on course for hitting that target!


	26. Chapter 26

**A/N:** I apologise for not uploading for a while. Basically, internet has taken far too long to set up, but I'm back!

Also, life as a Freshers Rep is both awesome and sucks. Got to go to a foam party... with barely any foam.

* * *

**Day One Hundred. Nova Station, Argos Rho cluster**

"Alright, this is the finalised plan for the mission. We're due to be starting Chastise three days from now, but the Normandy's leaving tonight. That means we have two days to finish getting ourselves and our gear ready." Naylor slid the four datapads he was carrying to the other members of his strike team, each accepting it as they sat around what could only be described as a picnic table set up in the Normandy's hangar bay. Around them were the other twenty members of the five other strike teams, sitting around in the free spaces in the hangar bay that was their temporary domain. Shepard had been inventive in how she accommodated the extra people on the Normandy – the reserve teams were given the bunks in the Crew Quarters, generally keeping to themselves over the past two days to avoid spreading the word to the other crew members about the upcoming raid, while the strike teams were given the hangar bay. Naylor, Tela, Collins and Hastings were camping out in James' former domain, the armoury, and had spent the past days working with the other teams to hone their equipment to the highest standard.

Tela in particular had been fascinated by the workings of Hastings' T-5V Battlesuit, the heavy mechanised armour being something totally unlike anything that the asari republics possessed and unlike anything the turians had considered making, despite their culture. The reason was simple – the asari didn't need anything like the battlesuit, and the turians loathed to put into production anything that cost them more than they could feasibly get out of it. But the Alliance knew that the battlesuit, with shields that could rival a Geth Prime's and its huge suite of combat systems could make a single soldier into a walking tank. Shepard took this to the extreme level, combining the battlesuit with her biotics and combat prowess and had turned it into a force that could take on Brutes and Atlases in single combat and win without a scratch.

For Hastings however, his battlesuit was far from the same breed of armour, but he combined the armour with the heaviest weapons in the Alliance's arsenal, the N7 Typhoon being his personal favourite. Along with the light machine gun Hastings carried along a Katana shotgun, a Cobra missile launcher and an M-920 Cain, the infamous 'portable nuke launcher' employed by the Alliance and favoured by its first Spectre. In the strike team he would fill the role of a heavy weapons expert, dealing quickly with the heavier Reaper units that they would inevitably face. Tela, as the only biotic would be the strike team's adept, crowd controlling the hordes of Reaper ground units with her abilities, while Collins, as an infiltrator, had the task of staying ahead of the team, scouting the route from landing zone to objective for concentrations of Reapers, for units with the resistance and for supplies if the need arose. Naylor, his role in the team was simple – be everywhere and lead.

"We're due to be landing outside the hamlet of Flaunden, about three miles from Amersham as the crow flies but five miles along the fastest paths and roads. It's a pretty rural area, so the Reapers shouldn't be out there in force. That said_, _the intelligence we have been receiving from Earth has been saying that the Reapers have been concentrating forces in the area, obviously with the intention to take out the CMA. It's a natural centre of resistance given the situation, and of course that's where we are due to find our friends from the N-school."

"If the Reapers are there in force, why not take the less obvious choice and go as the crow flies?"

"That's where knowledge of the ground comes into play Hastings. The direct route from Flaunden to Amersham will take us through the weir of the Chess River down at Latimer, which would take us a good half hour to cross in incredibly open terrain unless we were to divert and ford downstream or cross at the bridge in Latimer itself. Our other option would be to route through Chesham to the north east. While it would put us within easy range of potential Alliance and resistance support in the major towns but it more than double the distance we'd have to trouble."

"So we go through this Latimer and hope that we don't get ambushed by any of the larger Reapers while we're there. What then? And why aren't we landing in Amersham itself?"

"Once we get across the Chess we head parallel to the main roads until we get to the CMA perimeter, get our operatives and signal for extraction. We aren't landing in Amersham because it has a direct line of sight to a ground-to-air Hades Reaper in Harrow. Flaunden has the nice cover of a hill that we can sneak behind if we're clever."

"Ah." The Destroyer shut up as he mentally recalled his limited knowledge of the Home Counties, and the places that Hades variants of Reaper destroyers had been seen around London.

"How long before it goes SNAFU, Staff Lieutenant?"

"No idea, Collins. I say an hour. You?"

"Fifty says its half hour tops."

"I don't get you humans. You're betting on how long it would take for things to go wrong?" Naylor nodded back to the asari spectre. "Then I go half way and say forty five."

"Done deal." Naylor switched his datapad over to the next thing he had to brief the squad on. "Our charges are a squad of officers under a Lieutenant Scuito. She's Italian, so expect flamboyance." Ignoring Tela's shaking of her head in annoyance, Naylor carried on. "They were based at CMA before the Reapers invaded and have been leading the defence of the academy since then. Other than Scuito, our sole N7 to pick up, we have Martins, N6, Cant, N6, Smith, N5 and Murdoch, N5. Their dossiers are on your datapads, so you can memorise their appearance at your own convenience.

"Aside from the officers we're looking at extracting, we've been given some unofficial orders from Hackett to provide whatever assistance to the resistance as we think necessary. Given how things are going, I plan on helping them out by dropping off as many of our weapons as we can spare to the forces at CMA before we leave. Shepard's also planning on loading as many rifles as she can onto the extraction shuttles and sending them down to the surface for each team. We're talking a couple of crates of Vindicators, Avengers and even a few of the new Valkyries if we can."

"Vindicators?" Tela's head perked up as she heard the weapons that the squad were going to be taking down to Earth when they extracted.

"Yeah, Tela. Why?"

"Oh, nothing." In secret, Naylor knew of Tela's love of the M-15 – the turian battle rifle being a favourite for the Spectre. In recent months she had been fielding an asari-made assault rifle, the Neophyte, developed from the same extensive line as the Disciple and the Acolyte pistols. It was an aesthetically beautiful and comparatively powerful weapon, mixed with high accuracy and incredible portability, which made it a quick favourite amongst the better well-equipped asari commando units such as the Serrice and Armali Commando groups. But she still kept a soft spot for the old Vindicator, and Naylor had to agree – it was a very well-rounded weapon, and had been his chosen firearm before the Mattock.

"Right, if everything's finished, lunch's being served up in the mess hall. After that, we'll run over the terrain, plan our routes from LZ to objective and work out a secondary extraction zone."

* * *

Barely a minute after arriving on the crew deck and entering the mess hall, not even enough time to get in the queue for lunch, Naylor was quite literally dragged into Liara's office, the asari having something to show him that could only be dealt with in the secure confines of her office. Or so she said anyway. Liara had deemed it "too risky" to divulge the information she was about to reveal in the mess hall, given the presence of forty new crew members taking up every available seat, edge of table or any horizontal surface to sit down on while eating their meals. Instead, Naylor found himself in Liara's office trying to ignore his rumbling stomach as he waited for Liara to bring up what she had wanted to show him.

"As much as I know it is a biological reaction, would you please stop your stomach from distracting me from my work?"

"If you hadn't dragged me out of the mess hall before I had a chance to eat, that question wouldn't have been needed to be asked." Naylor laced his reply with barely veiled annoyance, angry at the fact that the meal that his stomach was in dire need of was barely a few metres in front of him, through the metal bulkhead that was the side wall to Liara's office. "Sorry, I'm just damn hungry."

"I understand. This should not take longer than a few minutes to bring up on the screens, but I think I can explain in the meantime. Peter, the Illium Defence Forces have been attacked by Reaper capital ships."

"What?" Naylor stood immediately, and was beckoned over by Liara who saw his movement out of the corner of her eyes. "I thought the Reapers were barely past the Titan Nebula and Sigurd's Cradle."

"Evidently our intelligence must be old, or wrong, but the facts are the facts. The Reapers are in the Crescent Nebula and are threatening a crucial supply route if they take Illium. Thankfully, they haven't. Yet."

"You say 'yet' as if you're not at all confident that the world will survive."

"Illium is the first world with predominantly asari defenders to have been attacked by the Reapers. We do not know whether the commandos and asari mercenaries stationed there could hold the Reapers off as well as the humans and turians have been seen to do. But there is another reason why I think that Illium will fall – when the Reapers arrived in the system, small volunteer units planted nuclear and warp bombs on the Reapers' transport ships, detonating them to deny the Reapers ground soldiers for their campaign. The Illium Defence Forces then focussed _only_ on the transports that survived, not the Reaper capital ships themselves."

"Surely then the Reapers cannot take Illium as they have no soldiers to do so?"

"That is why I think the world will not survive. I did not say that it would fall. The Reapers cannot afford to waste time in Tasale – every day they waste there is another day that the Asari Republics can use to rally their fleets and prepare for the inevitable onslaught. Although I don't have much experience in these matters, I believe that Illium will be dealt with not by capturing it but by destroying its cities and annihilating its ecosystem." Liara shuddered as she revealed her hypothesis. Illium had been her home for two years, and for however much she hated living there it still retained a significance – were it not for the time she had spent on Illium, Liara often doubted whether she would have found the designs for the Crucible on Mars. There were other things that she wouldn't have been able to do, but that wasby far the most important of the things she had achieved as the Shadow Broker.

"I can't even comprehend something like that. Annihilating an entire world and its inhabitants because they can't take it by force and kill its inhabitants? That's just barbaric."

"But we cannot rule it out. The Reapers may very well be overextending themselves at the moment. A lot of the evidence we have seen recently suggest that the Reapers do not have any reserves left, and the work that the Council, the Council races and I have done to prepare the Terminus Systems means that the Reapers are having to divert dozens of ships and transports to destroy or capture every world now rather than just blasting them into submission and sending a few husks to force a surrender. Although I do not like it, the inhabitants of the Terminus Systems are buying Council space time with their lives."

"You still have a conscience, Liara."

"What is that supposed to mean?" The asari turned, staring down at the Lieutenant, who was now sitting nonchalantly in one of the office's chairs.

"It means that you can still feel bad about stuff like this. Listen, compared to how long Shepard has known you, I know I've barely even met you, but I wouldn't like to see you getting obsessed with being the Shadow Broker."

Liara slowly closed her eyes, summoning the strength to say what she was going to say. "Shepard said the same thing on Illium when I was trying to _find_ the Shadow Broker. It got worse after that."

"All the more reason then to stop yourself from becoming the thing you replaced." An awkward and painful silence stretched out for a few second, prompting Naylor to at least say something lest he feel the need to just walk out of the office and turn his attention back to his lack of sustenance. "What about the southern arm of the Reaper assault? Have they progressed any further than Palaven yet?"

"There have been some attacks into salarian space, yes, but the Reapers seem to have been concentrating on recuperating from their losses on Palaven following the krogan's offensive. Overall control of space around Palaven seems to be switching between both sides every two or three days now, but the turians seem to have been finding ways of getting the upper hand against the Reapers. New tactics, new plans, new strategies."

"And a certain information broker is well placed to see this information sent as far and wide as possible, right?" Liara smiled slightly, but as she turned her head back to her console, that smile disappeared.

"I would love to say yes, but my agents within the hierarchy are being killed faster than I can position new ones. I will try and lobby the Primarchs with as many of my higher ranking agents to streamline the dissemination of those tactics, but it will take some time."

"Liara, if there is anyone who can do this, it is you." The asari slumped her shoulders, but when Naylor stood up and placed a hand there she almost leant into the touch, ignoring how intimate what she was about to do was to rest a cheek against the top of his hand.

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For trusting me in all this. I don't think that I could be doing this without you."

"Oh, I think you would still be going."

"Okay, I don't think I could be doing this _as well_ without you. We make a good team."

"If you say so. You're the expert."

* * *

**Day One Hundred and Two. Hydra System, Argos Rho cluster**

"_SSV Normandy, this is SSV Hamburg. Squadron Seven is currently moving into position on your flanks. The SSV Nashville and the SSV Leipzig are forming up at your three o'clock; the SSV Hamburg, SSV Agincourt and the SSV Cannae are forming up at your eight o'clock. Please confirm?"_

"SSV Hamburg, this is the SSV Normandy. We see the escort and are proceeding to the mass relay. Hold formation and prepare for relay transit."

"_Copy Normandy. All ships are holding station."_

Joker turned in his seat to regard Shepard's armoured form standing behind his pilot's chair, the Spectre standing with arms crossed in her T-5V Battlesuit. Every crewmember on the Normandy was at his or her station, and the CIC was a bustle of noise as the section chiefs listed off their stations' readouts and reported the readiness of particular sections of the ship. Importantly for Shepard, there were no reported problems with the Normandy's cyclonic kinetic barriers, its engineering department or its hangar bay, meaning that the ship was protected, its stealth systems could be readied at a moment's notice and Cortez's three shuttles could take off and deliver the strike teams as soon as the Normandy was in orbit over Earth. Everything was going according to plan, and the Normandy's escort into the Arcturus Stream, led by the SSV Hamburg, was on time and in position.

Squadron Seven, a part of the First Fleet, had volunteered for the task of escorting the Normandy to Arcturus, the only route available for the Normandy to get into the Sol System via the Charon relay. The Reapers were not expected to be making any attempts at attacking the Normandy while the ship was in transit, but the escorts were there just as a precaution. As soon as the Normandy hit the relay to the Sol system, Squadron Seven would peel away and make for Nova Station as fast as possible, joining the cover force planned for Operation Goodwood. Until then, Commander Shepard, so used to working on her own, was relishing the chance to command her very own flotilla of ships.

"Joker, how long until we reach the relay?"

"About five minutes, Commander. No sign of Reapers yet."

"We should be good until we make the first relay jump. What's our route?"

"We are using the Hydra-One relay to jump to the Horse Head Nebula, Commander, and then Pax-Gamma to the Arcturus Stream. ETA to the Sol System is twelve hours twenty minutes, Earth in eighteen hours. We should not encounter any Reaper forces until we arrive in the Arcturus Stream, although there are Reaper scouts in the Horse Head Nebula that could be in action around the relays."

"Cheers EDI. Have the shuttles prepared for immediate launch as soon as we make the Sol system. Joker, you have the bridge." The Spectre walked from her post in the bridge and made her way back to the commander's podium in the CIC, monitoring the progress of the Normandy on the holographic projection of the galaxy map, enlarged to show only the parts of the galaxy that they would be travelling through. By her terminal, however, was a turian, one of the members of the reserve team, a Lieutenant Maridus. He had been picked as the unofficial leader of the reserve group by the others, given his position as a former member of the Turian Blackwatch and a platoon commander in the 26th Armiger Legion. Shepard trusted the turian to be succeed if his team was needed to go into action.

"Commander, I have a suggestion."

"Go ahead Lieutenant."

"Commander, we're all here to see the strike teams succeed, right? At the moment, they're sleeping rough in the hangar bay. Given that we've got eighteen hours until we get to Earth, why don't we give the reserve team the hangar bay and give the strike team the crew quarters?"

"So they get a decent night's sleep before a suicide mission. I hadn't thought of that. Give them the word." Maridus headed back towards the elevator, leaving Shepard to take her place at the commander's podium. Traynor was standing beside her at her station, ready to assist the commander if she was needed to. But Shepard could see that Traynor was nervous, and clearly tense about the upcoming mission. "Traynor, you play chess, right?"

"Yes, Commander! How did you find out about that?"

"Liara told me. I hear you had an interesting game with our resident archaeologist?"

"Yeah. Apparently Liara has never played before. I doubt that entirely."

"How badly did you lose?"

"I didn't. Well, I won when we did a best of three, but she pulled Fool's Mate on me on the first game. Fool's Mate!"

"I don't know what that is." Shepard's monotonous, deadpan delivery sent Traynor into a fit of laughter, getting a few stares from those in the CIC that couldn't hear their conversation by the galaxy map. "Okay, I do know what it is, and that's embarrassing. My crew should be doing better than that. How did you fall into a Fool's Mate?"

"Overconfidence on my part. I only realised my mistake when I saw Liara's face light up on my second move. Five seconds later, I had lost by Fool's Mate."

"You poor specialist, Traynor. Tell you what, how about actually giving you a chance to beat me convincingly?"

"Okay, uh, how about when we return from Earth?"

"Sounds good. We'll do battle in the port observation lounge then." Traynor smiled, turning back to her console as the Normandy ground onwards through the vast expanse of space before the mass relay. In a few minutes time, the Normandy would be hurtled from the Argos Rho cluster of stars into the Horse Head Nebula at a speed of thousands of light years a second, far faster than its top speed of five thousand times the speed of light. And Shepard was confident that her crew would be successful in the mission that they would be launching when they reached their ultimate destination.

* * *

**Day One Hundred and Three. Sol system, Local Cluster.**

The Normandy exploded out from FTL into the Sol system, her crew immediately activating the ship's steal systems, cyclonic barriers and EDI's electronic warfare suites. The advances that the Alliance had made in masking the ship's signature when the vessel exited FTL paid of massively – by the time that the Reapers detected that resembled anything remotely like an exit from FTL, the Normandy was half way across the system and in the clear.

Joker and EDI skilfully manoeuvred the Normandy around the patrolling Reaper destroyers that kept the system strictly in Reaper control. In the CIC, technicians kept watchful eyes on the temperature of the heat sinks that were integral to the Normandy's stealth systems, which were slowly creeping up higher and higher.

Shepard, Cortez, his two fellow pilots and the six strike team leaders were standing around a holographic display of Earth, the six target locations highlighted on the surface as the hologram slowly rotated around on an invisible axis. Orbit around Earth was still a half hour away, the Normandy slowly and safely traversing the space between Mars and Earth, but preparations were already afoot for the first of the deployments of the strike teams into Earth's atmosphere.

"Khan, you're launching Team Star into Moscow. Cortez, you're launching Team Slip into London. Ores, you're launching Team Jaune to Mont Louis. We're going to be following the sunset on this operation, so the launches will be spaced irregularly. However, we think that we can get our teams into position far easier in this way. If you cannot land your teams at your normal landing zones due to Reaper presence, or are attacked by Reaper airborne forces on the route back, your orders are to find a place to land and hook up with the resistance. Do not return to the Normandy if you are discovered or attacked.

"If you are attacked while you still have your teams on your shuttles, your orders are to hit the deck and try and evade your pursuers and return to your normal LZ. If you aren't able to do that, then eject using the grav-chutes in your shuttle and proceed to the ground as quickly as you can."

"Commander, if we lose a shuttle, will there be any changes to the pick-up schedule?" Ores' question was the one that all of those assembled knew had to be asked, but none of them wanted to lest it bring bad luck down on those involved.

"If we haven't lost strike teams, then no. Our pickups are scheduled to take place with the use of one or two shuttles, so we should be fine. If we lose all the shuttles, then the teams will be notified and the Normandy will extract from the Sol system. Hopefully it won't come to that, but I'm sure you could find a nice spot for a picnic and wait for the war to end if it does." A chorus of nervous laughter rippled around those involved, and Shepard cracked a smile at her own joke. "If there are any more questions, just ask. And good luck. We'll probably need it."

The team leaders all left the holographic display, Naylor heading back to the area where his team were finishing their final checks on their armour and their weapons. Tela and Collins were strapping the many weapons to the hardpoints on the back of Hastings' T-5V battlesuit. The M-920 Cain took pride of place in the centre, its normal yellow and black design given a gunmetal grey coat of paint to make it less visible, while his Katana and Cobra launcher were being attached below and to the left of the Cain respectively. His Typhoon was currently sitting down on the nearby weapons bench, and the Devastator would be taking it into battle with him. Tela's weapons, her Neophyte assault rifle and a "back up" Vindicator, were already attached to the hardpoints on the back of her armour, while Collins' Viper sniper rifle and her M-11 Suppressor sat beside the Typhoon, waiting to be collected by the infiltrator.

As Naylor approached, the three turned mid-work to regard the Staff Lieutenant as he reached their little home from home in the hangar bay. Tela turned around as he approached, leaving Collins to suddenly bear the full weight of the Katana she was attaching to Hastings' armour.

"We're good to go."

"Goddess, we're really doing this?"

"Yeah. No more sitting about. We're in Cortez' shuttle, second on the launch schedule."

"Then we better finish. Your weapons are all prepared, disruptor ammo loaded and sights zeroed in." Tela handed Naylor his weapons, an M-96 Mattock and an N7 Eagle heavy pistol, and Naylor could see the blue casing around the ammunition block in the middle of the two weapons. Quickly latching the Mattock to Naylor's back, Tela then unfolded the pistol and passed it to the lieutenant, who stored it, unfolded for a quicker draw, on his right hip. "Lieutenant Vega is currently getting us another box of thermal clips. Apparently someone can't have enough of them." She nodded her head towards Hastings, who was finally ready and helping Collins attach her weapons to the hardpoints on the infiltrator's armour.

"Have you seen the number of weapons I'm carrying?"

"Yeah. That doesn't merit taking like a thousand thermal clips." Tela was right – the plastic clips on Hastings' waist, the outside _and_ inside of his arms and the bandoliers around his chest were stuffed with the small red cylinders to the point that one would think that they were part of the colour scheme of the armour. Vega, however, arrived soon after with a new container full of both the metal blocks that rounds would be fabricated from and thermal clips, and on Naylor's suggestion all four took more ammunition to be used in case their current blocks ran out of shots as well as thermal clips in the case of everyone bar Hastings.

A few final glances to the assembled faces in the hangar bay, mostly the off-duty staff, the reserve strike team and Shepard's ground team and Naylor led his squad out towards Cortez' shuttle, sitting powered down behind Khan's shuttle in the maintenance bay. Cortez was standing beside the door, waving them inside as the Kodiak in front began spooling up engines to their maximum power, Zaitsev's squad already onboard and ready to launch. Shepard ran up to the shuttle just before Naylor got in, planting a hand on his shoulder and turning him around on the spot.

"Lieutenant, I'd, uh, like to say I'm wishing you the best of luck."

"You're making it sound as if we're on a suicide mission. You'd know a thing or two about that, am I right?"

"Pretty much. Listen, stay safe out there. You're a damn good guy and I didn't, still don't want you down there but hey ho. Any last words?"

"Yeah, if I don't make it, just keep doing what you got me to do and keep an eye out for Liara. She'll exhaust herself if someone doesn't pick up the workload."

Shepard smiled, knowing what the Lieutenant didn't know or wasn't picking up on – that though she denied it and tried ever so hard to cover it up, Liara felt a strong friendship with the Lieutenant that she worked alongside and was tearing herself up about not being able to help all of the teams in the best way possible, her network on Earth smashed to pieces by the war. "Got it. Anything else?"

"I'm not _that _religious, but what the hell – pray."


	27. Chapter 27

**A/N:** I'm currently experiencing a few problems with doing work on Galaxy at War. The first is the sheer amount of work that I've been doing for university. It's only day two, but we're already facing tests, coursework assignments and the lot. And as the workload piles up, writing takes a really big tumble down the list of priorities...

The second problem is actually because I've been working on something which I'm calling "Not So Green Are You?" as a provisional title. Yes, it's a story. NSGAY is an AU first contact story set in the Mass Effect universe, but it's pretty different from the normal "Human meets alien and is whisked away into space" type. I'm really excited about it, I've been working on the AU's background, the immediate backstory to the thing and the plot details, but it's shaping up to be a bit of a corker. Closer to the time I start uploading it, I'll give y'all another heads up about it, but the major thing that I can't decide is who to have as the main alien character, and as the romance for Shepard - Liara or Shiala?

* * *

**Buckinghamshire, UK.**

"Five minutes until we reach the LZ."

"Cheers Cortez. Everyone, helmets on and go dark." As one, the four occupants of the Kodiak donned their helmets and shut down every extraneous function on their armour to conserve energy and reduce emissions. Lights on the hardpoints on each soldier's back, cooling/heating functions to regulate core body temperature, ground to orbit communications and the like were all deactivated or lowered to the lowest possible setting as part of the action. Helmets went next, each person's holographic HUD dimmed as well to reduce light emissions and save energy. Naylor's Paladin helmet, Collins' standard-issue Alliance helmet and Hastings' Destroyer helmet all went on quickly and smoothly, apart from a small rearranging of hair in Collins' case, while Tela instinctively reached for her rebreather mask, before quickly pulling her hand back.

"Fuck."

"What?"

"You said we were trying to go anonymous, right? Well, I forgot my helmet." The asari Spectre smiled at her bad memory, having left the item in question in the team's little area in the Normandy's hangar bay before they had boarded the shuttle. The black mask she had taken onto the shuttle would suffice to cover her face, but an asari's main way of being identified is her skin and any tattoos, and Tela's were extremely distinctive. The Reapers had singled out and targeted a number of Spectres personally since the war began, increasing in number since the victories on Tuchanka, and that had suggested a mole within the Spectre network or that someone had breached into the network and stolen high-value intelligence on Spectre identities. Tela's celebrations for the entry of her father race, the krogan, into the fight on Palaven had been cut short by Councillor Valern, who had put her to work on investigating, alongside Alliance intelligence, the possibility of the attacks on Spectres leading to an attack on Shepard or the Council, not counting the Cerberus coup over a month ago. She had been forced to work with an insufferable number of people, but she knew now that, if the Reapers saw who she was, she could be a target that would merit a huge Reaper response.

"Here, take mine." Being an infiltrator, Collins removed her own helmet, an elongated version of the Alliance helmet to accommodate her hair, and tossed it to the Spectre, pulling up a balaclava over her head and clipping a small bead headset to her left ear. "I don't need a helmet. It's far easier to hear things when you're not using auditory emulators, and you can smell things as well."

"You'd make an interesting huntress, Specialist."

"Thank you, Spectre Vasir, but I'm not a biotic. I did, however, hunt varren while I was stationed with the colonists on Feros before the war began, so a hunter isn't out of the question."

"You were on Feros?"

"Yeah. Met a green asari. No offence, Spectre, but green is a really weird colour for an asari to be."

"Green? I've met teal asari and ones that have blotchy skin that looks green under some light, but never green."

"Shiala Vosen, former acolyte to Matriarch Benezia and leader of the Zhu's Hope Militia."

"Vosen, eh? I've heard of her. Pureblood, though."

"Still not a fan of purebloods, Tela? You helped one a very long time ago on Illium."

"Yeah, but that was an extreme case. There are no benefits for the species, only problems."

"Not all purebloods are A-Y, Tela. Look at Doctor T'Soni, she's not A-Y and she's the damn–" Before Naylor could finish, Cortez' voice cut through the conversation.

"We're approaching the LZ, Lieutenant. I'm opening the port side door now." The four squad members stood up, assembling in front of the designated door as it opened to let a wave of crisp, fresh air into the previously pressurised cabin. Except Collins' nose turned up immediately in disgust as she smelt the thing that everyone else was looking at. Naylor quickly leant out of the shuttle before ducking back in again once he had seen all he needed to see.

"Steve, we can't land here." The landing zone was covered in dead bodies, both human and Reaper, as well as the wreckage of an Alliance sub-orbital transport, a larger version of the Kodiak with a capacity of thirty rather than twelve. "Can you find us another LZ?"

"I'm working on it. It'll be difficult to stay out of the line of sight of the Hades Reaper but I could get you on the other side of the Chess from here."

"How about the road that we're hovering beside, Steve?"

"Oh. Hadn't seen that. It's in a blind spot." Cortez swung the Kodiak to one side and over the road before settling the Kodiak down on the old tarmac surface. Naylor jumped out first, followed by Tela and Collins who all ducked into a crook in the hedgerow that was beside the Kodiak, covering their corners for Reaper forces. Hastings crouched in the middle of the gap between shuttle and hedge, his Typhoon covering all sides, before giving Cortez the signal to pull back to the Normandy.

By the time that the Kodiak had gotten out of sight and into the clouds, the realisation that their one link back to the Normandy had sunk in. They were on their own, quite literally, unable to speak to their comrades in orbit and not wanting to speak to their compatriots on the ground lest they bring Reapers down on either position.

"Alright, we follow this road down into the Chess valley and cross down in Latimer. Questions?" Nobody made any attempt to speak up. "Right then, let's hop to it. Collins, you're on point. I want you ahead and scouting for any movement, organic or synthetic. Hastings will follow at twenty metres with me and Spectre Vasir on rear security."

The squad set to their tasks, Collins running on ahead to cover the squad and scout for enemies, while Hastings was in a position to cover the infiltrator if she came under attack. Naylor and Tela were at the back, keeping both Hastings covered from attack and keeping an eye on the areas they had just been through for any Reapers that were following them. The journey through Flaunden was uneventful, aside from the landing, but the main thing that brought it home to Naylor was how empty the hamlet felt. The Alliance had been lucky and was able to evacuate the civilians to Amersham and then out towards Oxford when the Reapers had hit Earth, but the lack of any form of life, not even pets or farm animals in what was a hamlet surrounded by farms was unnerving to even the strongest-willed of soldiers.

The nerves were brought to a head when Naylor peered round a corner of a hedge to check whether it was clear, finding himself face to face with a husk. Instinctively, he raised his rifle and prematurely squeezed the trigger, firing three shots into the thing's feet. Immediately, the rest of the team dove for cover, before Naylor realised that the husk was dead – the burnt remains of one that's side was riddled with shrapnel from an explosion. As he relaxed, and gave the squad the all-clear, Tela made her way up to where Naylor was standing and poked at the husk with her finger.

"It's dead."

"I know."

"Then stop shooting at corpses and let's go."

The squad resumed their march, and thankfully for Naylor, the hamlet was small and clustered around a small crossroads, and the squad broke out into the countryside within a few mentally-arduous minutes. As they began descending towards the bottom of the Chess valley, Naylor laid eyes on Latimer, the usually bright manor there almost invisible were it not for the moonlight that illuminated the area. This was all before the smoke from the fires of London and the other cities had smothered the sky, and for that Naylor was thankful. Against the horizon, Tela set her eyes on the orange glow of fire and the periodic flash of red as a Reaper cannon unleashed its deadly attack.

"Is that London?"

"No. Probably Reading or Southampton." Naylor pointed Tela's attention round another ninety degrees to the left, away from the south and towards what he knew to be the east. There, a far brighter glow of orange was set against the sky, fading quickly into the inky blackness of rising columns of smoke and ash. "That is London."

"By the Goddess. And Palaven's worse than this?"

"In places, but there are areas on Earth that are far worse than on Palaven. We're lucky here in the UK that we still have very few major cities that are strung across the country. In places like China and America, cities are often clustered on the coasts. I wouldn't want to be living there, or on Palaven, where their cities are far larger and more extensive than on Earth."

"Two teams are going to the place you call America."

"God help them getting the things they will see out of their heads then." A quick call from Hastings for them to catch up and the pair found themselves breaking out of their conversation to jog back up to where the Destroyer was walking along at a brisk pace.

"We're looking at another hour to get to Amersham at this rate, Staff. This could be a short mission indeed."

"Don't say that."

"Makes you wonder – Amersham lies on a strategic route from London to the west of the UK. Why aren't there more Reapers about the place then if we still hold it?"

"I said don't say that."

"Beside Lieutenant Naylor wanting you to not say that, the Reapers aren't waging a conventional war in the same sake as we do. Their goal is to kill or harvest people, not to conquer territory." Tela's interruption was very much appreciated for Naylor, who was far more worried about the situation than he probably should have been. Amersham had been reported to have been under attack by the Reapers in the past few days, but the signs of battle were missing from the other side of the Chess valley, where Amersham lay, were suspiciously absent, and that didn't sit at all well for Naylor.

The brisk pace down the shallow slope towards Latimer continued, Collins occasionally stopping the team as she climbed a hedgerow to scout the terrain ahead. Each time she could see nothing through her thermal imaging scope, and after a short scramble down to the floor she signalled back for the team to continue on. The process of walk, walk some more, stop, wait for Collins to scout and then continue continued until the team approached the closest of the thatched-roof houses that made up the small village of Latimer. Suddenly, Collins raised a fist before throwing it violently towards the floor. Instinctively the squad dived to the floor, still several metres short of the cover of the nearest house.

Naylor crawled up from where he had hit the deck until he was parallel with Collins at the front of the group. The infiltrator was focussing on something with her sniper rifle's scope, but she was still able to register Naylor's arrival before he even spoke. "What is it?"

"Airborne movement, east by south east coming up the valley from our left." Naylor poked his head up and followed the direction she had indicated. "Three oculi in V formation."

"I see them. Think we can make it to the cover of the houses before they are overhead?"

"Probably."

"Alright." Naylor raised a hand to his ear. "Tela, Hastings, we're moving up towards the houses. No time for bounding overwatch, just run. Got it?" He didn't wait for the other pair to respond, instead tapping Collins on the shoulder and running forward to the nearest building. The oculi were approaching quickly, but when Tela and Hastings slammed themselves against the wall of the house beside Naylor and Collins, they were yet to have passed over the village. As the reaper fighters sliced through the sky abover her head, Tela turned to look up at the Lieutenant from where she was crouching against the wall of the small cottage.

"Okay, so what now?"

"We pick our way through Latimer slowly and get to the bridge. After that, we hole up near there until the oculi are gone and then get to the other side of the valley and into the tree line."

"Got it."

"Alright, stay close to the walls and be careful around corners. Hastings, you're leading. Let's go." The four edged their way around the side of the house, emerging on the main street that would take them directly down to the bridge. The oculi above them were circling, out of view further up towards the manor house, but all four were keeping their eyes peeled for the possibility of the fighters spotting them from the ground. When they were firmly out of sight, Hastings ran forward and used his T-5V's bulk to flatten a small hedge between two houses, taking care to limit the noise that he made while doing so, and the rest of the team quickly followed through to dart against the side of the next cottage. Collins was about to move round towards the front when Tela pulled her back violently and the pair flattened themselves against the wall.

"Fighters."

"Christ, they're right above us now. I can feel them." Collins was right – the ground was rumbling as the Reaper fighters swooped overhead. Through the gap between the buildings Naylor could see the lead oculi pass over his head, followed soon by the two others, but his face blanched as they suddenly peeled off to one side.

"Shit, run!" Collins led the squad round the front of the building, running as fast as her legs and the servos in her armour allowed. Tela and Naylor were following behind her, Hastings taking up the rear and walking backwards with his gun trained on the skies. The oculi heaved into view, heading straight for the squad at a considerable pace. The Devastator called out that they were on their attack run, Naylor, Collins and Tela all hurling themselves to the floor or the sides once more before they could be annihilated by the Reaper fighters.

Except the fighters didn't open fire. They continued on over the heads of the squad, heading straight for Amersham – a fact Naylor realised as soon as he picked himself up off the floor. The skies were suddenly lit up by the explosions of triple-A fire, and two of the oculi were smashed apart almost immediately, plummeting to the ground in heaps of burning wreckage.

"Hey, there are your signs of battle. Amersham's friendly." Hastings' voice sounded pleased – he was evidently wanting to get back to the creature comforts of the Normandy as soon as possible. So were all of them, but Naylor knew they had a fair distance to go before the operation was finished.

"Bridge. Now." The squad broke away from the buildings, running down towards the bridge in open sight as opposed to the previous tactical creep they had been making down the last parts of the hill. Collins led first, moving faster in her lighter armour than the rest of the squad and crossing the bridge and reaching a set of crossroads in a quick spurt of movement that put her fifty metres ahead of the rest of the team. It was necessary – she could see any Reapers moving up the three roads and alert the team quickly. The sounds of the oculi attack on Amersham and the flashes of explosions in the sky framed Hastings' run, the Devastator making it half way across the bridge before tripping on, of all things, a loose stone at the side of the pavement. Despite the din of the battle to their right, Hastings' fall was audible to Naylor and Tela, back on the other side of the bridge. For a few seconds, Hastings was unable to pick himself up as his armour tried to compensate for the fall. However, that made him acutely aware of what was about to happen next.

Naylor and Tela first knew when a massive explosion lit up the valley, the roar of a detonating eezo core hurting their ears despite their helmets. As they turned around, Naylor suddenly saw the last remaining oculi spiralling violently out of control, belching smoke from its flank and sending sparks flying. The fighter plummeted down to the ground, but the hit from the triple-A caused the Reaper construct to spiral to the right. And it was arcing towards the squad.

"Hastings, go!" The Devastator needed no more encouragement, funnelling all the power he was able to funnel into his servos and actuators, even stripping his kinetic barriers for a few more joules of energy to be redirected. Kinetic Barriers wouldn't make an ounce of difference if the oculi hit the bridge dead centre. Naylor and Tela, on the other hand, had no chance of making it across, their only bet being to hunker down on the north side of the river and find another crossing point, praying they weren't killed by the crash. As the Destroyer made it to the far side, the oculi smashed into the weir to the right of the bridge, skidding along the base of the lake until it reached the weir itself. It then became an Upkeep, its momentum carrying it through the wall of the weir in an explosion of stone, and then into the bridge. Hastings made a final leap to the other side as the bridge collapsed behind him.

* * *

**SSV Normandy, Earth orbit**

Shepard sat at a table in the mess hall, trying not to wonder at the progress of the teams below on the surface of Earth. Cortez, Ores and Khan had all deployed their forces safely to their landing zones, bar a few minor rearrangements based on battle damage from the ever raging war against the Reapers. The information they had brought back from the ground, which would be vital for the Alliance in the wider galaxy, was not promising.

In every theatre across Earth, the Reapers were on the offensive and there were no signs of that stopping any time soon. In the cities, where the Reapers focussed their efforts, civilian evacuations were the main goal of the forces that the Alliance could communicate with. Soldiers would desperately hold a perimeter while any surviving emergency service units would guide civilians to safety outside the city limits. Militia units, armed with whatever they could get their hands on, guarded the slowly moving masses of evacuating civilians, and the Alliance soldiers leading them broke the living streams apart when needed and hurried them towards safety when they were out of danger. A number of smaller cities across Earth were now wastelands, the Reapers having either obliterated them from orbit or having passed through in their conquests. They became havens for the resistance, civilians holding up in safehouses that soldiers would guard until the Reapers discovered their presence, at which the humans involved would delve deeper into the warrens of streets and roads of the metropolis they were in.

In the cities that were still being fought over, the Alliance had taken control of nations' defence forces and coordinated them to defend what they could for as long as they could. The few mechanised and armoured units that still survived, particularly in China, Russia and America, launched lightning attacks on columns of Reaper soldiers moving between fights, withdrawing as soon as any larger Reapers were even seen moving towards them. House-to-house fighting was the order of the day, tanks and artillery taken from military depots, factories and even museums being used to buy more time in the defence. In places, cities like New York, Berlin and London resembled more the wasteland of Stalingrad two hundred years before than the hubs of life they had once been.

Everywhere outside the cities, the war was less obvious, but not by much. Reaper forces were still found there, but many smaller towns were spared the onslaught thus far, though the growing number of civilian refugees spreading to those locations would soon change that. Larger towns, and those with obvious strategic importance garnered the response of a Reaper force to obliterate everything they could find, but the resistance dug in deep and held where they could. Often the battle would be decided by the arrival of a Destroyer to annihilate the defending human forces, but tenacity often prevailed, and the stories of Reapers being destroyed lifted morale every time they surfaced.

But there was one thing that was prevalent, recalled the three pilots – everywhere, Earth reeked of death.

Onboard the Normandy, the Alliance crew were settling in for the long wait for the mission to be completed. The last of the deployments had been completed over an hour ago, and Shepard was now simply waiting for the first call saying either "mission complete" or "mission failed", at which point she and every other man and woman on her crew would spring into action to do what they needed to do.

A slight movement in front of her caught the Spectre's eye, and she saw what was a very rare appearance in this day and age – Liara stepping outside of her office to make her way to the mess hall for some food. Usually the asari eat her own meals cold in the seclusion of her office, burying herself in work, but since Naylor had taken on some of the burden of her job, Liara had at least used the mess hall to warm her food through before retreating back to her work. This time, though, Liara warmed her food and made her way towards Shepard.

"Liara, how are you?"

"Nervous."

"What about?"

"There are thousands of Reapers that, with less than a minute's notice, could find out our location and repeat that terrible day three years ago."

"Hmm."

"What?"

"You're not the only one." Shepard leant down on her elbows, resting them against the tables and propping up her chin with her hands. "One quick hammer blow from the Reapers and we lose both the Normandy and the chief translator on the Crucible's designs. I reckon that losing the first cause us to lose morale, but without the second… hmm… I reckon we'd lose the war."

"You really think I'm that valuable to the war effort?" Shepard nodded. "Shepard, I'm a scientist. I'm not valuable."

"Says the Shadow Broker…" whispered Shepard, keeping her voice down but nudging the asari opposite her playfully. Liara smiled in response. "You're valuable. Don't tell yourself otherwise."

"Thank you, Shepard. I did have something I wanted to talk to you about, though."

"Alright, what is it?"

"You'll find it important, but just not out here. In my office."

"Right, but on one condition." Liara cocked her head to one side, furrowing her brow in confusion. "You stay out here, eat, and have a chat with me rather than skulking back into your room and doing work. That's an order."

"I suppose I can do that. There isn't much to talk about, though."

"Why?"

"I cannot access the vast majority of my network at the current time, bar a single QEC connection to Feron's base on Illium from my office."

"But you've seen everything that the pilots have brought back from the surface, right? Surely you can do something with that?"

Liara nodded before she took another mouthful of food, chewing slowly before replying. "Unfortunately, I have." She eat another forkful of the syntri, but the slow pace of chewing suggested to Shepard there was something else that the asari was thinking about. "I fear for the Republics, Shepard. More than ever."

"Why's that?" Shepard immediately realised how stupid the question was, but she let it go anyway.

"The Reapers attacked Illium just before we left Nova Station. The planet's defence forces dealt them a heavy blow by destroying Reaper transports, but the Reapers will deal with that world, whether by conquest or by annihilation. Thessia and asari space are just a few relay jumps away, and the asari are not yet ready by far. The e-democracies are still debating motions on the welfare of refugees on asari worlds and the transportation of goods to the refugee villages on the Citadel to ease the suffering of those there." Liara paused, pushing food around on her plate to try and centre herself before continuing. "Shepard, there are nearly half a billion refugees just on Thessia now, more than any other planet, and barely any measures have been taken to get the planet ready for war. In fact, forces are being taken off world to be deployed against the Reapers in Alliance space and the Traverse."

"God."

"If the Reapers hit Thessia and break through our fleets, then the world will be lost. There will be no resistance, just death."

"It won't come to that, Liara. I promise you, Thessia will be fine."

"Will it? Perhaps Aethyta was right, that we are just relying on the turians, the krogan and the humans for everything."

Shepard put a hand on Liara's shoulder, staring deep into her eyes. "Thessia will be fine, Liara. I promise you, hand on heart. Now, what about this information you had for me?" With a nod, Liara picked up her plate and led Shepard back into her office. Before she started, she wolfed down the last few mouthfuls of her food and set the now-empty plate beside her terminal as she began working. The asari's fingers flew over the haptic keyboard, bringing up windows and datastreams on the computer screens in front of her. Shepard tried to see and take in everything that appeared, but the rate at which Liara was working made that an impossibility. Evidently she had been working on this for a long time, through a single connection with the outside galaxy, but that was enough for what she had been focussing on. "So what's all this then?"

"Shepard, remember when you asked Lieutenant Naylor to run a search for the Migrant Fleet two months ago? Since then, I've been using some of my spare resources to monitor any updates on the situation for you, yet I've constantly found nothing. Until now. Feron has been monitoring the Dholen system in the Far Rim in my absence. Five hours ago, and we've been analysing this ever since, we managed to find evidence that someone has invaded geth space."

"The geth? Does that mean that the Reapers are attacking the geth now?"

"I do not know, but our main evidence is that there was a complete blackout of transmissions and signals being received from probes sent into geth space by the Council races. This happened five hours ago." Liara pointed Shepard towards a small display of the galaxy map, with the normal relay routes replaced by the pathways used by datastreams belonging to Council races. As the asari pressed play on the display, the pathways coming out from the Far Rim suddenly expanded, as if they were being bloated by something. "What makes it peculiar is not how the transmissions disappeared, but they were smothered in a huge amount of redundant code, almost as if they had been disorientated by one of your flash grenades. Feron is still unsure as to who did this, but it certainly matches the style of technology the Reapers have."

"That said, if it is the Reapers, getting the geth on our side could be a coup to end all coups. I'll get this to Admiral Hackett at once. You're a genius Liara." Shepard hugged the asari, before ducking off towards the elevator. Liara stood there, dumbfounded as to Shepard's reaction. She was expecting the commander to instantly believe it was the quarians, not the Reapers, that had invaded geth space, but instead things went far more differently from what she had been prepared for. Turning back to her console, Liara locked her office's door one more and buried herself in her work.

* * *

**A/N: **Shiala or Liara? Fanfiction, decideth!


	28. Chapter 28

**A/N: **Writing at university is not easy. Especially when doing engineering (9AM starts and many, many 6PM finishes). I apologise for updating less and less frequently, and I hope you guys are still sticking around!

I made a choice on NSGAY, based on some lovely feedback, and because it works out, I'm going with Shiala as the LI in the story. It also makes a bit of an irony in the title - Shiala in this is her original purple self...

That said, I plan on having Liara in the story, as both of the pair's backgrounds (Shiala as a commando for Benezia, Liara as an archaeologist) work with the premise of the thing. It's going to be an interesting story to write, and should hopefully go live within the month.

In the mean time, on with Earth!

* * *

Naylor and Tela stood overlooking the wreckage of the bridge, watching as the water previously being locked behind the weir thundered down and into the valley. Any chance of crossing the river downstream now was gone with the destruction of the weir, leaving only the route through the nearby town of Chesham upstream as the only viable option left for the pair.

"Couldn't we swim?"

"_You don't know how unnaturally cold it is out here, Spectre. It may be in the summer, but my nose feels like it's going to fall off and I'm sure my ears already have. You'd get across the lake but then your armour would freeze after a while, and we don't have enough time or a safe location to dry it off."_

"Collins is right, Tela. Chesham's far safer an option." Tela nodded her approval, giving Naylor a chance to address the pair on the opposite side of the river, standing in the open across the destroyed bridge. "Hastings, I want you and Collins to head on up towards Amersham. Get inside the CMA perimeter and find Scuito's group, get them ready to extract on a moment's notice and then join the front lines if you're needed. Tela and I will circle round through Chesham to the north and approach via the Bois district, so give the CO at CMA fair warning of our approach. If we don't arrive within the next two hours, call Cortez and extract."

"_What about radio contact? Will you contact us when you're en route?"_

"We won't. Can't risk it."

"_Alright then. We'll see you in Amersham, or wait two hours then extract."_ The Devastator led Collins off up the side of the valley and out of view behind a hedge as they made their way over the crossroads. Naylor turned back to the Spectre, who was already setting out towards Chesham by first picking her way across the hedge separating the road from the field to the west. Naylor caught up as she tumbled over the branches, landing with a crash on the other side.

"Fucker!"

"There was a gate about a metre to your left, Tela." When the Spectre's usually-quick verbal riposte failed to materialise, Naylor realised something was troubling the Spectre. Extending out a hand to the asari, which was not taken, Naylor watched as Tela got to her feet and dusted herself off. "Something up?"

"Yeah. Thessia. I can't stop thinking now about what would happen when the Reapers arrive there."

"I thought you were born on Tuchanka?"

"No, Sanves, but all my training was on Thessia given how limited the areas that we could train in were on that planet. I can't shake the feeling that the Reapers aren't going to just invade the world. I feel like they'll crack the planet in two."

"I doubt that's possible, Tela, even for the Reapers."

"But the point remains. I could say with confidence that every asari alive today fears for the homeworld, especially your mother and her colleagues on the Citadel."

"What if we win? What if the Crucible is finished before the asari are attacked?"

"That's a vain hope," Tela muttered as she led the way across the field. "Goddess, I'm sorry for making you deal with all of my shit."

"It's getting to all of us. If we were with the other two, I'd likely be seeing my childhood home right now, and that wouldn't be fun at all."

Tela stayed silent as she reached the next hedge, this time leaping over the stile rather than trying to tackle the hedge again. "But what else is there to talk about. I can't say anything I've been doing, given how it's all Spectre-y, and everything you've been doing is all over the news. All of you on the Normandy have become quite famous. Doctor T'Soni, for instance, is one of the most popular scientists about right now."

"Even with the war, people are reading scientific papers?" Naylor swung his leg over the stile, landing on the soft ground on the other side with a plop and then began making his own way to the

"You'd be surprised at what some people do to escape it."

"Try me."

"One of the diplomats in the Turian Embassy opened up something you humans call a skating rink for refugees on Kithoi Ward. I don't get that – why do you want to deliberately step out on ice? You'd break a bone doing it!"

"You have ice skates, Tela. They have small blades on the bottom that cut through the ice."

"It's a stupid idea anyway. Most of the asari that I saw there just flew about with their biotics. Far more interesting." Naylor laughed at the comment – every time he had worked alongside Tela, barring the Citadel coup, the asari had always been enjoyable to work alongside, if sometimes a bit crass. Her views on certain things, like mercenaries, asari-asari relationships and galactic celebrities were often bordering on the extreme side of rude, and to anyone she had barely met before, her attitude could easily be described as extremely cold and forever angry. Thankfully, she had quickly warmed to Hastings (strange considering how much she almost tried to avoid the Destroyer) and Collins' experience as a hunter on Feros had been a good common starting point for the two to get along well. In the few days since they had met, the squad had gelled really well. Except then it had been split, quite literally, by a crashing oculi.

The pair's march across the fields of south-eastern England continued without many signs of Reapers, barring the flashes of war that lit up every horizon and a few occasional dogfights between the surviving human fighter squadrons and oculi in the skies above the pair. Very soon, they were nearing the outskirts of the town of Chesham, from where they could simply hop up the side of the Chess valley and get inside the CMA's defensive perimeter.

By now, the night was wearing on past midnight, although both remarked that they felt like it was still less than an hour since they had landed, and as they approached a farmhouse that they had been staring at in the distance for the past quarter of an hour while they had been walking, neither let up in their vigilance. Breaking into a quick jog, Naylor quietly slammed himself to one side of the wooden door, Tela to the other, and he peered through a crack in the door.

"No light."

"Got it." Tela fished out from her belt a two pairs of asari-made night vision goggles, tossing one to Naylor and fixing the other to the catch at the top of her helmet. Naylor did the same, silently praising the asari military's last-minute idea before the war to standardise parts across the navy's commandos with human gear, given the similarities between the two species, as he attached the goggles to his own helmet. "Like Nasurn?"

"On three. One. Two. Three!" Tela primed her biotics, smashing the door open on its hinges as Naylor's omni-shield sprang into life. It was a tactic they had developed on Nasurn, where the base of the slave ring they had stormed had been outfitted with old hinged doors rather than the sliding doors common to everywhere else. Tela would break open the door with her biotics, and then Naylor, omni-shield raised, would dart through the door and absorb any fire from defenders on the other side, giving the Spectre a chance to follow through and take out targets from a far more secure firing base. It worked again this time, Naylor bursting through the doorway and into the farmhouse, the glow from his omni-shield lighting up the room around him. That glow meant he saw the husk before it even began its charge towards him.

Naylor ducked low as the husk approached, placing his shield between him and the Reaper soldier as it sped up on its final attack run. As soon as it was in range, Naylor swept up with the shield, crushing its skull and breaking its neck with a well-placed hit to the chin. Synthetic enhancements or no synthetic enhancements, it still required a head to work. A second husk charged out from behind Naylor, but it betrayed its location with a low groan. Deactivating his shield, Naylor swung around with omni-blades extended and carved the husk into four. Looking around, there were no more Reapers rushing at him from either side, and as Tela made her way through the doorway, Naylor took a punt. "We're clear!"

Tela looked around carefully, and thankfully, Naylor's shout rang true. "Fantastic. You think we should lay up here for a while or proceed onwards?"

"We can take a break for now, find some water and break open a ration bar. But the others are expecting us to get there soon, and every minute we spend here means another minute for the Normandy to continue hiding from the Reapers."

"Course. Can't delay. I'll find us some water, so you deal with the rations." Tossing the Lieutenant her ration pack, the Spectre ran off to try and find a working tap or fountain to draw some water from, leaving Naylor to break open the rations and make something out of the meal. And for that short moment, Naylor felt as if, ignoring the war, the cold weather and the smell of death on the wind, things weren't actually going too badly.

Tevos sat down at her desk in her office, feeling strange about some of the hushed whispers that she had overheard while talking to Ambassador Osoba in the human embassy. The Alliance had not formally given him the post of Councillor following Udina's treachery – in the absence of the Alliance Prime Minister, such an option was not available, but Admiral Hackett, using the emergency powers he held due to the destruction of Arcturus Station, effectively gave Osoba the role in all but name. Despite this, Osoba was overworked and understaffed thanks to the war, with many of the Alliance technicians in the embassy being reassigned to Nova Station, the Crucible or the fleets to make up for losses, and the diplomats often found themselves working overtime to cover both their normal jobs and the roles that were previously filled by civil servants on Arcturus – liaising with those colonies that were not yet under attack for access to resources, space to house refugees and more besides.

Those whispers that Tevos had heard talked about something called cobra, although why humans would be whispering about a snake indigenous to their homeworld was lost on the councillor. Yet all her experience told her that something was up, and as a precaution, she had her staff double check storage cupboards for "bugs and monitoring devices" far more thoroughly. Death by animal bite was not going on her obituary.

But Matriarch Lidanya, having disappeared a few days ago to visit the Alliance's Nova Station, was acting strangely too, often avoiding the Councillor whenever she asked the Destiny's captain for formal audiences, informal policy discussions or for the a chance to talk like friends. Instead, Tevos had gone to the Consort Sha'ira for the same reasons, which given the media presence outside her chambers at the time of her second visit seemed a big mistake.

"Councillor! What is the purpose behind your visit to the Consort's Chambers?"

"Councillor Tevos, are the rumours spread by Aria T'Loak about your infidelity true?"

"Councillor, what is your opinion on Operation Cobra?" Tevos had been ignoring the barrage of questions that came her way from the press, walking behind the escort of Mallene and Serenya as the two commandos carved their way towards her destination, but as soon as she heard that word again, cobra, being uttered from the mouth of the ever intrusive and often-offensive Khalisah Al-Jilani, the councillor stopped in her tracks.

"What did you say?"

"What is your opinion on Operation Cobra, the Alliance's first offensive action being taken against the Reapers?" Tevos paused, unsure as to what the human reporter was talking about, but then something clicked. Lidanya's actions and behavior, Shepard's sudden disappearance and the whispers about cobra in Osoba's embassy all quickly fell into place.

"I'm sorry, there are far more pressing concerns at the moment. I will hold a press conference soon, Miss Al-Jilani, so please have your questions directed to my press secretary, Adria Eros before then." Adopting a completely neutral façade, Tevos strolled quickly and confidently through the last of the reporters and into the empty sanctuary of Sha'ira's realm. The Consort had given Tevos a stern promise – should she ever need to talk, Sha'ira would clear the entire premise to give Tevos enough space and for enough time to allow her the chance to relax. And the councillor was very thankful for that particular decision from the wizened asari.

"Councillor, it is an honour to see you once more. Please, have a seat. Is there someone that I can call for you?" Sha'ira's melodic tone swept through her private room as Tevos stepped through the doors, the sweet perfume filling the air immediately relaxing her raging thoughts.

"Thank you, Sha'ira. You are as perceptive as always. Personally, I wish to speak with Matriarch Lidanya, although she seems to be ignoring everything I say or ask."

"I will contact her at once, Councillor." With a bow of the head, the Consort left. Sure enough, a few minutes later Lidanya arrived in the chambers through the same storm of media questions as the councillor before her. "Councillor Tevos, Matriarch Lidanya is here."

"Tevos is here, Consort?"

"I am, Lidanya, and this time you must be straight with me. What is Cobra?"

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Lidanya, tell me straight. What is Cobra?"

The matriarch paused, waiting as she collected her own thoughts before replying. "Councillor, Operation Cobra is an Alliance operation to retake Elysium. It is being launched to throw the Reapers on the back foot and divert their attention away from the front lines of their invasion. As well as liberating Elysium and giving the Alliance another centre for production and for housing refugees, Admiral Hackett believes that it can buy the asari more time to prepare for the Reapers given their proximity to asari space."

"And that is where Shepard has gone?"

"No, Councillor."

"Then where has Spectre Shepard gone, Matriarch?"

"Spectre Shepard and the SSV Normandy, along with Spectres Williams and Vasir, three dozen turian, human, salarian and asari specialists are currently in orbit over Earth." Though Lidanya continued on, revealing Naylor's involvement in the operation and the danger that he was in, Tevos barely heard anything after the word Earth was mentioned. She knew the danger that the ship faced, stealth vessel or no stealth vessel, and for the second time that war, Tevos' heart felt like it had shattered. Before either of the two other occupants of the room could react, she fell back where she was standing and crashed to the floor in shock.

Naylor and Tela waded through the rubble of the one and only fight to have taken place in Chesham since the war began. The Alliance had won at a terrible cost to the Reapers, fought at a time when there were no converted krogan, turians and rachni to contend with, but their position grew untenable as Reaper reinforcements flooded down from the north and west to clash against unprotected flanks. The surviving soldiers and civilians beat a hasty retreat towards Amersham up the valley sides to the south, and it was that route that the strike team pair were following towards the same destination.

One of the three oculi had crashed into one of the few undamaged buildings left in the part of the town that they were in, carving a hole in the middle of the sports centre and, ironically, coming to a halt inside the open air swimming pool. Naylor could see the rising smoke from where he was, walking along the main access road that the drive up to the farmhouse had joined half a mile back. Tela was keeping an eye out behind them, the pair walking in the open through a very exposed part of town.

Looking over towards the centre of Chesham and Naylor could see just how far the Reapers had got in their attack on the town. The Alliance forces had corralled the Reaper attacks into a single thrust up the road the pair were walking along, and from the houses on both sides both Alliance and British soldiers had torn ragged holes through the Reaper hordes charging along there. The wreckage of a Mako could be seen poking out of a wide alley, hinting at just how desperate the battle had become, but the furthest the Reapers had got was still far short of where the bulk of the town's defenders sat waiting for them in the high street further on.

Naylor was snapped out of deducing the events that had transpired by a small shout from Tela as she slipped up and crashed to the floor on a loose piece of rubble. The fall didn't look bad, the majority of the impact of her leg being absorbed by her armour, but Naylor knew that one lucky piece of rock could puncture her undersuit and her skin through the gaps between the plates of armour, and that he had to take a look regardless.

"You said yourself, we can't afford to wait."

"We can if you're wounded. There should be a first aid kit in these houses, so we won't be wasting our own medigel anyway." Naylor quickly made his way towards the nearest house, making sure not to slip, but the careful attempt was worthless, a piece of rubble slipping underneath his right foot and sending him clattering to the ground on his side. "Well, that makes both of us."

"Yeah, you need medigel too." Tela gave him a hand up, almost slipping again as she quickly shifted her weight backwards to pull Naylor up. "Shit, let's just get out of the damn rubble for now."

"I agree wholeheartedly!" Arriving at the door, Tela pressed a hand against it as she got ready to biotically breach the door. However, the wooden surface gave way, creaking open, and the Spectre followed through, raising her Neophyte up to scan through the corridor. Naylor followed her in, his Mattock raised and night-vision goggles lowered in the lack of light. Except he didn't need them – from one of the upstairs rooms a crack of light could be seen through an ill-fitting door panel, and as quickly yet silently as they could, Tela and Naylor positioned themselves at the sides of the door ready to breach.

"On three," Naylor whispered, locking away his Mattock and drawing his Eagle. He brought up his free hand, signalling _three, two, one _with his fingers. Tela smashed the door open with a biotic burst, and Naylor surged through the doorway and locked his pistol's sights on the first form that he could see. "HANDS ON THE GROUND, NOW!" Tela ran through, her rifle aimed at the other person in the room, but then she suddenly dropped the barrel of her rifle and pointed it to the floor. Naylor realised what she was seeing – the form formerly in her sights was a violet female humanoid. An asari. Checking his own target, the person he was aiming at was also an asari, teal coloured, very naked and very, very shocked.

"Goddess, you're human!" Tela shook her head, removing her helmet to show the teal asari that she was not human but in fact asari. "Oh, asari. I'm so sorry."

"You know who you're talking to, right Nel? That's Tela Vasir!" The teal asari, Nel, stared at the violet asari before turning her attention back to Tela.

"Oh my, you _are_ Tela Vasir, the Spectre. Forgive me, my name is Nelyna T'Sira. This is my bondmate, Anyana Carra. We're from the Armali Police Force, on an exchange program with the Metropolitan Police in London." Nelyna missed the slight furrow of Tela's brow at the mention of the word 'bondmate', but surprisingly for Naylor, Tela made no mention of her complete dislike of asari-asari relationships or purebloods even, which was something given Nelyna's parentage.

"Hang on, Nelyna T'Sira? Matriarch Lidanya's daughter?"

"Yes, that's correct. And you are, sir?"

"Staff Lieutenant Naylor, N7. I serve with Commander Shepard on the Normandy."

"Commander Shepard is here? On Earth? Have the fleets come then?" Naylor paused, looking over at Tela who shook her head in response.

"Shepard is here with the Normandy, but the fleets aren't. We can't say much more than that, I'm afraid. Its classified under Spectre authority."

"I understand. Safety reasons and all. Come, please sit. We've made up a small fire with what we have. It isn't much but then we were travelling light." Nelyna beckoned the pair over to the fire in the middle of the room, where Anyana was hurriedly replacing her bra and pulling on a pair of combat shorts at the same time. When she was done, the violet asari tossed her bondmate her own underwear, and unashamedly Nelyna put them on without trying to conceal anything, much to Naylor's embarrassment, given how he had been standing right beside her in full view of everything since he had entered the room.

"Why are you two outside of London anyway? Wouldn't you be with the rest of your exchange program?"

"Most of the other police officers from Armali were killed on the first day, Spectre, when a Reaper landed on Scotland Yard, the police building we were staying in. We were the only survivors, but we volunteered two weeks ago to find a safe route out of London that resistance groups could use to get into London. It's something to do with whatever the Reapers are building in Hyde Park, we were told, but it was kept quiet when we were being briefed."

"What are they building in Hyde Park?"

"Nobody knows. The Reapers hold that territory and there is no way short of an entire army attacking there that anyone could get remotely close to it."

Naylor looked over towards Tela, who was tapping away at her omni-tool, storing the information away for a later date. The Spectre looked up when she was finished, clearing her throat slightly. "Perhaps Admiral Anderson may know more about it."

"Doubtful. Last time Shepard checked in, he was still over in America with no idea on what was happening on other continents."

"Admiral who?"

"Anderson, formerly Councillor Anderson before he rejoined the Alliance Navy at the start of the year. Surely you've heard of him?"

"Ah, I remember him. Lidanya liked the human, far more than that person who replaced him, Udina. She said he'd get himself killed through everyone hating him so much." Tela couldn't help but laugh at the irony in Nelyna's words, which given the asari's lack of knowledge about events in the wider galaxy was rather obvious. "So where are you two heading on your secret mission?"

"CMA, just up the hill."

"Ah, we're going there too!" Anyana spoke up from where she had been resting under a blanket beside the fire, warming herself against the cold air outside the room. "The Alliance used to use this old train route as a way of smuggling civilians out of and fighters into London, but the arrival of that Hades Reaper in the town of Harrow put an end to that. Our mission was to find a new route from Amersham into London that avoided that Reaper."

"Which route did you take?"

"We looped round from the north, past a town called Hemel and then went south via a concealed woodland track through a town called, what was it Nel, Latimer?" Nelyna looked over at her bondmate, nodding yes in response. "Avoided the Reapers for the most part, barring a few skirmishes."

"You may want to rethink that route. An oculi took out the bridge into Latimer, but you could go north from here and pass along the Ley Road towards Hemel and go that way."

"Could work. Listen, if you're going to Amersham, we should stick together. We used the last of our ammunition up in a firefight a day ago, and we could use any help you could offer us." Anyana lifted up the blanked, revealing a long and nasty looking but well-tended-to scar crossing her stomach and running up to the middle of her left breast. "Ever since that fight, we've been sort of limping our way across the countryside. Nel took a wound to the back of her leg that we couldn't treat as effectively or as quickly."

"We can take a look at the wound if you want to."

"No thank you, Spectre. It's fine enough to walk on for now. How far is it to Amersham?"

"About a mile as the crow flies, but it's all uphill. Shouldn't take more than twenty minutes if we're careful, ten if we're fast."

"Then we should get going then." Both Anyana and Nelyna quickly pulled on their police uniforms, standard sets of the incredibly tight-fitting commando leathers that Naylor couldn't help but think would be very distracting while working with human police officers, and grabbed their weapons from where they were resting against the wall. While most asari commandos and asari police officers held the _rank_ of huntress, dedicated snipers within the commandos and the police forces were _classed_ as huntresses, in the same way that most snipers within the Alliance were classed as infiltrators. Anyana was one of those snipers, armed with an Acolyte heavy pistol and an N7-grade Valiant sniper rifle she had come into possession of during the fighting in London. Nelyna was what the asari called a Valkyrie, a close approximation to Alliance sentinels, and she carried a simple combination of an Acolyte and a Hurricane submachine gun, again acquired during the fighting in London. Between them, the pair were fearsome opponents, but with Naylor and Tela alongside them they were even deadlier.

Naylor led the way out into the cold night, and immediately he could tell that Nelyna and Anyana regretted leaving their warm hideout behind them as soon as they met the cold air. Instead of sending Anyana out as a scout, Naylor preferred to have the team stick close together, partly because of the lack of heavy weapons to cover Anyana if she was attacked, but also because Naylor had some lingering doubts over the possibility that the two asari were in fact indoctrinated agents, given the fact that they had appeared and just so happened to be going to the same destination as Naylor's team were going. As the climb up to Amersham began, Naylor gripped his rifle even more tightly.

"Nelyna? Where have I heard that before?"

"It's quite a common name. I think. There was an acolyte at the Consort's Chambers who was called Nelyna, but I

Nelyna's leg proved to not be much of a hinderance, the team quickly halving the distance between start and destination within ten minutes, but it was not long before, on the wind, Anyana suddenly began picking things up on the wind. Sounds of battle, she whispered back to the group. Naylor pulled off his helmet. Sure enough, the crack of rifle fire could be heard, but it was soon obliterated by something else. Something far louder, and far closer to Naylor's ear.

"All CMA units on all nets, this is Commander Fenton. Major Reaper attack coming in from the east. All non-sentry units to the eastern perimeter ASAP. Sentries, be aware VIP arrival is imminent." The voice coming through Naylor's earpiece was so loud compared to the soft, quiet whispers that had been passed between the group for the last ten minutes, and the lieutenant instinctively reached up a hand to try and tear and throw away the earpiece, only then remembering that he would need it later.

"Sounds like they're expecting us." Tela's voice cut out the communications channel, and Naylor was thankful for the fact that she was still whispering quietly. "Let's get moving."

"Doubt it, Tela. Alright, double time it." With a final surge, Naylor led the group up the final parts of the hill, weaving the squad around the trees in their path before at last the hill began to level out. A twist in the road was all that separated them from the CMA perimeter, and the bodies of husks and cannibals could already be seen littering the ground beyond it. Naylor took the lead, swinging round the corner to come face to face with an M35 Mako infantry fighting vehicle, the tank's barrel already turning to track his sprint and end it with a single shot from its 155mm cannon. "DON'T SHOOT! FRIENDLIES!" Naylor bellowed at the top of his voice, letting his helmet amplify the volume enough to be easily received by the guards on duty. Except the only man Naylor could see was still training his rifle on the asari behind him, trigger finger tightening slightly as he exhaled before the shot.

"Stand down soldier." The sentry looked to one side, behind the Mako, before snapping up and to attention. Naylor skidded into the barricade, almost tripping head first over the wall before seeing the face that had saved him and his team from a case of death by friendly fire. "Lieutenant Naylor. When I heard Hackett was sending you, I knew this operation would definitely succeed. With Spectre Vasir, definitely so."

"You doubted whether we'd be able to do the job?"

"A little bit."

"Sir, do you know them?"

"I ordered them here, Corporal." Anderson extended a hand to Naylor, pulling him up and onto the barricade before doing the same for the three asari that ran behind him. "The other two members of your team arrived a while ago, so I hear. What happened? How did you get split up?"

"An oculus took out the bridge while Spectre Vasir and I were on the other side. We routed around to the north as our alternative route, and ran across Nelyna and Anyana en route."

"Ah, the two that were sent from our cells London to help smuggle our forces into the city. How did your mission go, huntress?"

"Well generally, Admiral. We took a few injuries on the way but we're still willing and able to guide you back into the city."

"Thank you, huntress, but we'll be fine if you just pass us the directions. If Lieutenant Naylor here is fine with it, we can get you out on their evac shuttle when it arrives." Anderson looked towards Naylor, who replied with a simple nod of the head. Shepard would understand better if the order came from Anderson. "We also have some wounded with more specialist needs that can only come from off-world care. Limb replacements, burn treatments, etcetera. They're all good soldiers, and we could do with them getting back into the fight."

"We'll be able to find a way to get them out of here, sir."

"Excellent. We'll head down to the command centre, get you some food and some rest." With a salute to the sentry and the crew of the Mako, who had emerged from their metal shell to catch a glimpse of the famous Admiral, Anderson left the barricade behind and delved into the streets of Amersham, emerging out into the open beside the headquarters of the CMA.

Throughout the walk, Naylor could see the tired faces of soldiers resting at the sides of streets, catching a few moments away from the action before their next stint on the barricades was due to start. Civilians too were present, many acting out of kindness and taking hot food and drinks to the resting soldiers and marines in the streets. A number of children were out in the streets, but when Naylor looked and studied their faces, it was harrowing. Children were not supposed to go through anything like this. Many looked as if they would never shake off the things they had seen. Fortunately, Anderson kept the pace high, and Naylor was unable to dwell on the subject for any amount of time.

"Depending on time we may be able to get your team and your charges out by shuttle before the morning. The other two are currently on the eastern barricade, lending what help they can. We're expecting another Reaper push from the east, but once the attack there has been seen off or proven not to be happening, you can call your shuttle pilot, get him to pick you all up." The Admiral waved them all in to the bunker that was the command centre for the Academy's defensive perimeter, located in the buildings that used to be Amersham's high street, before the Reapers had forced the shopkeepers all out of business. "Here, grab some food and take a few minutes to rest. You look like you need it."

"Much appreciated sir. If you don't mind me asking, how have things been going on the ground? Shepard has tried to keep us all updated on your progress when she can."

Anderson paused, thinking something over in his head, before turning back to the Lieutenant with a smile on his face. "If I'm honest, Lieutenant, things seem to be going very well right now."

* * *

**A/N: **If you're confused about why Anderson's smiling, don't worry - he's not indoctrinated! This chapter runs directly into the next chapter, although I won't be uploading it until I'm done with the geth fighters mission. Trying to keep a gap between what I'm uploading and what I'm writing is essential...


	29. Chapter 29

**A/N: **I honestly hate writer's block. It's like the mud at Passchendaele - you get mired in it and you feel like you can't get out. I'm sticking with this, till death or me actually finishing it by uploading the final chapter! We're getting there, slowly but surely, and I do hope to finish it up with a pretty big bang.

If you're confused like I am about the time that this mission takes place at (which becomes quite important later on), I sort of made a bit of a mistake. Naylor's team dropped in at around midnight BST. By this point, it's about 0230 BST. Time flies when you're in combat…

For the record, medi-gauze was come up with by JadeDragonMTR for the story "Second Life" (/s/8533218/). Check it out, a good read!

* * *

"'Going well'? No offence meant, sir, but things don't look that way right now."

Anderson sat down beside Naylor, handing him a plastic bottle full of clean and extremely inviting water, which Naylor immediately gulped down quickly. The admiral sighed before explaining what he had meant. "Ever since the Reapers landed, we've been on the back foot in most countries, yes, but there are some places where the Reapers haven't been as successful in driving us back, and there are a few areas where they have been beaten back altogether. The UK and a number of countries in Europe are some of those places. Here in Amersham, Commander Fenton has been telling me how the Reapers have tried on numerous occasions to break their perimeter, but they've held on to the point where we've been able to reinforce here with fresh fighters that we brought over from Canada."

"We have fresh fighters now?"

"Well, soldiers that were fighting in Canada before we pretty much abandoned it to the Reapers. I spent a month on an old naval warship sailing from Quebec all the way to Liverpool with four hundred other soldiers crammed onto the vessel, and we got a lot of well-deserved rest then before we disembarked here in the UK.

"Ever since then, we've been working our way towards London, using the old train lines as a guide. We arrived here a week ago, been resting ever since but then we've also been involved in holding the perimeter here, waiting for our two asari colleagues here to deliver their information. We know we can't win at all in London, given the huge number of Reapers there, but they are doing something there in Hyde Park, and if we can find out what it is, it could benefit the resistance massively."

"I wish you luck with that."

"Thanks. I feel like we'll need all the luck we can get." Anderson sat there for a while, similarly tired despite being able to rest for the past few days. Suddenly, the door to the command centre burst open, a young CMA student bursting in and almost collapsing on the floor with exhaustion. "What is it son?"

"Reaper attack threatening to break through to the north east. Fenton needs more men to help out." Anderson made to get up, before Naylor stood in front of him and held an arm out to stop the admiral from rising.

"We can handle it. Tela, you, me, Nelyna and Anyana need to head over to the eastern barricades, hold the line there. You ready?"

"Always. Let's do this."

* * *

Naylor's team arrived in the nick of time, joined en route by Hastings and Collins who had made it over from where they had been fighting in the southeast. The barricade was being held by a few unwounded Alliance marines, along with a pair of British army soldiers. Around them lay a dozen or so writhing figures, wounded soldiers that had barely been given attention for as long enough as to get them out of the line of fire, before their unwounded comrades got back to the fighting.

Naylor jumped onto the barricade beside one of the Alliance marines, tapping his helmet to alert the soldiers as to the presence of their squad. "Sergeant, give me a SITREP!"

"SNAFU sir! We're holding, but the Reapers have a heavy unit to the east in those trees that's tearing large chunks through our cover every time it fires. We can't get at it without abandoning the barricade to do so, but we can't hold the barricade without taking it out."

"Don't worry. I'll take four of my group and take the thing out. Lieutenant Hastings and Specialist Collins will hold here and give you guys some more firepower."

"Appreciated sir!" Naylor's squad already knew their jobs, and Hastings and Collins quickly established themselves in two of the more well-built parts of the barricade before adding their fire to the other defenders'. The Reaper advance, made up of husks and cannibals, was being beaten back, but if the heavy unit wasn't dealt with quickly, Naylor knew that the barricade could easily be smashed open and the defenders cut down like wheat to a scythe.

"Alright, we're looking for a Reaper heavy in the copse of trees to the east. Watch each other's backs and keep an eye out for anything that might give us an advantage. Clear?" The three asari going with him all nodded with determined looking faces. "Right then, let's do this."

Naylor and Tela jumped over the barricade first, darting out to the cover of a low wall that sat in the middle of no-man's land. Nelyna went next, nimbly ducking and weaving as the Reapers targeted her run, joined all the way by Anyana's cloaked form running alongside her bondmate. The four reunited behind the wall for barely a brief second, Naylor immediately signalling the next part of the attack. As he and Tela ran for the cover of a shell crater half way between the wall and the copse of trees, Nelyna and Anyana would provide a withering hail of weapons fire and biotics to distract the Reapers from the moving targets. Naylor and Tela would do the same as Nelyna and Anyana would move up towards a different crater, from where the process would be repeated. It was a standard asari offensive action – constant fluid movement, quickly reacting to events occurring on the battlefield and delivering a huge weight of fire onto a numerically superior enemy.

As Naylor began his run to the crater, he caught a glimpse as the two bondmates unleashed hell at the Reaper forces. Biotic detonations coursed through the Reaper lines every few seconds, channels of dark energy being destabilised and detonated by warp fields, and telekinetic fields combining with throws and warps to split the Reaper lines in yet more places. A few husks made it through the barricade's fire to get close to the pair, but Nelyna threw out an annihilation field, a radial warp attack that disintegrated the husks before they got anywhere near the pair to threaten them. Naylor ducked into the crater and began his and Tela's reply, sighting on a group of cannibals and dispatching them one by one with well-placed shots to the head. A few targets presented themselves nicely for him to fire incinerating rounds from his omni-tool at them, and Tela quickly pounced on the survivors by combining her biotics with the flaming remains of one cannibal, causing a fiery explosion to catch and vaporise all around it.

"Nice one!"

"I try!" Naylor slammed a new thermal clip home into his Mattock, firing on a marauder stupid enough to pop his head up in the path of Naylor's omni-tool, the device draining the marauder's shields before Naylor put a round through his skull. Tela gunned down another group of husks that were getting close to Nelyna and Anyana in their crater, before shouting that the next run was upon them. Combining her biotics with the other two asaris', Tela detonated a massive shockwave to hurl the Reapers in their path away to their deaths before running forward once more. Naylor followed in the wake of the destruction, firing at targets of opportunity as he tried to keep his rifle fixed into his shoulder while running. Seeing an opening in the Reapers following Tela's attack, Nelyna and Anyana ran out from their cover, joining the other two as they ducked and weaved their way through the trees towards their target.

The rachni husk, or ravager as they were now being called by the Alliance, was in what could be approximated as a hull down position relative to the barricade, hidden in a crater created by a Mako's cannon and almost impervious to fire thanks to its thick front armour. The Mako in question had been taken out by the ravager in the opening stages of the attack on the barricade, but the crater had given one opening for Naylor's team to take – the side of the ravager's position was wide open, and the Reapers don't leave guards to protect their units.

The first sign for the ravager that it was under attack was the simultaneous application and detonation of a dark energy channel tearing through its side, crushing its right cannon and splitting the spawning sacs across its flank in a squelch and a scream. Naylor and Tela fired their weapons into the hole created by the attack, followed quickly by Naylor's incinerate function. The four superheated bolts were enough to kill the beast outright, while a few tiny shockwaves from Tela sent the swarmers spawned by the exploding sacs flying away to be crushed against the ground on the opposite side of the crater.

"Score one for organics then."

"Hell yeah. Great work." Naylor's attention was taken away from the successful mission by the intensifying rifle fire coming from the barricade. "We better help out. Tela, what's the Neophyte like at long range?"

"Pretty decent, I guess."

"Right, give your Vindicator to Nelyna. We have decent cover from here and good lines of sight over the Reapers. Flanking fire with biotics?"

"Plan." The four buried themselves into the cover of the crater, sighting along their weapons at the Reapers attacking the barricade. "On Naylor's count."

"One. Two. Three. Kill the bastards." The crater erupted with noise as four fingers mashed down on their respective triggers. They were joined seconds later by their comrades on the barricades, catching the Reapers in a crossfire that no force could make it out of.

* * *

"Lieutenant Scuito?" A young-looking N7 Demolisher snapped her head up from the supply pylon that she had been working on, her purple hair flicking around and into her eyes as she quickly jumped to attention, the others trying to do so before Anderson waved them off and back to whatever they had been doing before.

"That would be me, Admiral."

"Lieutenant, this is Staff Lieutenant Naylor with the SSV Normandy."

"Shepard's ship?"

"The very one." Naylor extended a hand to the younger marine, who shook it firmly with a grease-covered gauntlet. "This may seem strange but we're here to get you and four other N-grade officers off world."

"What for?"

"Classified until we leave the Sol System, unfortunately. We also have a number of other N-grade operatives that we need to get out, and the window of opportunity that we have is pretty tight."

"Alright, I'm with you on one condition."

"Go on."

"I have five supply pylons still to deploy around the eastern edge of the perimeter. Once they're done, we can talk about getting out of here." Scuito finished assembling the pylon, testing it out for a few seconds before picking up her equipment and making her way towards the next location she was heading to. "You can tag along if you want, but that may not make me go faster. Peer pressure doesn't work." Naylor followed the Demolisher with Tela and Anyana in tow. Anderson, Collins and Hastings had already departed to locate the rest of the group they were extracting, while Nelyna had gone off to find a medic to take a look at the wound on the back of her leg, which had started seeping since they had returned from the north east barricade.

"So how have things been going here in Amersham?"

"Reasonably well. Right now we're the closest part of the front line to London, barring the forces that are still in the city, but that doesn't seem to have made us any more of a target. We have an all-round defence that we can hold, so our flanks aren't an issue, we're reasonably self-sufficient with the Academy's underground hydroponic gardens and we have a mountain of rations currently sitting in storage for when we don't have fresh food." Scuito weaved her way through the clusters of resting soldiers behind the barricades, nodding and smiling to those she knew from her experiences of the fighting. "My worry is about ammunition and thermal clip levels, which is kind of why we're setting up these supply pylons before we go. They can fabricate ammunition blocks from any kind of metal, and thermal clips can be reset to work again as if they were new."

"I've never seen that kind of technology before."

"It's something we were working on just before the Reapers hit, huntress…?"

"Anyana. Anyana Carra."

"We developed this tech a few days before the Batarians got invaded, and were it not for the Reapers arriving and cutting off our lines of communication we were going to share the designs with the rest of the galaxy. Turns out we were a day late to do so." Scuito ducked down in the next of her locations, taking out from her pack an unassembled supply pylon and got to work. Each pylon was based off of a simple folding tripod design, with a series of extendable arms protruding out from the top, each with different containers on the arms. A power cable was coiled around the folded base of the pylon, and after uncoiling the cable and setting the pylon down on its tripod base, Scuito set about trying to find a plug socket to connect that cable to.

"How does it work?"

"Well, the pylon can replace ammunition blocks by simply taking any form of metal, liquidising it with the same process as the superheating we do with incinerate functions and then pours the molten metal into a shape of an ammunition block, supercooling it when it is finished. It then dispenses the block below and makes the next one as soon as the first has been removed.

"Thermal clips are more complicated, but essentially the metal used inside a thermal clip to dissipate heat into is useless once it has been used. Basically, we use the metal fed into the pylon to replace the worn out dissipater with fresh metal." Almost immediately after finishing her sentence, Scuito gave a victorious shout – she had managed to find a free generator to attach the pylon to, powering the device up with an audible hum. The engineer began turning her attention to securing the tripod in the ground, taking out a mallet and a series of thin steel poles to ram through a trio of connectors on the

"Surely that would have a downside?"

"You'd be right there, huntress. The ammunition blocks this thing makes are often substandard, wearing out the barrels of rifles much faster, and they lack the same stopping power as slugs made from the standard castonite alloy due to the fact that they don't deform on contact." Close off to the group's right, an infiltrator suddenly sighted down his Viper sniper rifle and let loose a trio of shots, causing everyone to duck behind the barricades with their weapons raised. When his spotter gave a whoop of confirmation, everyone resumed their previous occupations, beit sentry duty, talking with comrades, or the incredibly essential role of making cups of tea and coffee for friends and colleagues. "The thermal clips also hold a few fewer shots per clip with the replacement process, but the difference is so marginal, three shots in twenty or so, that the method is viable as a short term stop-gap measure. The academy can also fabricate the specialist parts for thermal clips but on a much slower basis, so we can replenish most of our stocks normally, in addition to the rare supply groups that make it through from other areas."

Naylor took a closer look at the design of the pylon as Scuito finished seating the final steel pole in the ground. "This looks like something forces everywhere could make use of. The asari could have hundreds of these made every minute if we got the designs to them."

"When we're out, you can have them all you want. That was the plan, and we're sticking to it." The Lieutenant continued on, Naylor's group following until Anyana again stopped the Demolisher and pointed towards a series of armoured vehicles currently under camouflage netting.

"What are those over there? I've never seen them before."

"They're SPGs." Naylor followed the line of the police officer's hand, noticing what she was talking about.

"What now?" In his instinctive reaction, Naylor had forgotten that, given how the translation software that everybody used, acronyms never worked between species.

"Self-Propelled Guns. They're like ship cannons but mounted on an armoured vehicle. Those are M-227s, based off of the M-080."

"And what is the point of them?"

"The asari don't have anything like this?" Anyana shook her head, answering Scuito's question quickly and efficiently."The M-227's job is to turn in the direction of a target and fire rounds at it from a huge distance, top range is about a hundred or so miles. It can either fire directly, kind of like a battering ram, or be fired at a lower speed over a parabola.

"The Alliance has been using them against the Reapers in pretty much every city across the globe. They can smash apart an entire floor of a skyscraper if the shot is aimed right. Only problem is that they can't fire in anything more than a shallow arc, so we've retrofitted a number of Grizzlies to have scratch-built mortars attached to them instead of cannons. The British Army has also made their own variants based off of old tanks they liberated from museums and depots around the country. You'd be surprised how well they stand up to Reaper fire. The SPGs with the multiple shorter barrelled guns are SPAAAGs, or Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Artillery Guns. They simply shoot at anything in the sky."

"Were they the weapons that destroyed three oculi over the Chess Valley about an hour or so ago?"

"Yeah. Why, Spectre?"

"They almost killed me."

* * *

Lieutenant Scuito's job had taken about another half hour to finish assembling the rest of the pylons, and with the job finished Naylor led the Demolisher back to the central command hub, where Nelyna had made her way to following the finishing of the treatment on the back of her leg. Hastings, Collins and the remaining operatives the team had set out to collect were in the bunker as well, listening as the asari police officer debated, of all things given the time, the impact of humanity's arrival on the galaxy prior to the hunt for Saren Arterius.

"No, medigel is more than just 'a minor thing'. It's meant the survival of thousands of patients that would have required extensive surgery to close wounds that synthetic stitching and medi-gauze would have failed to deal with." Nelyna looked frustrated with the Staff Lieutenant she was talking to, trying to explain that humans had actually done more important stuff in the galaxy than just the defeat of Saren Arterius and the Reaper Sovereign. "Add to that the kind of quick medical treatment that the asari just aren't wired to have considered developing, and humanity have revolutionised the world of medical treatments in just thirty years. Asari hospitals run with thirty year long trial periods, yet we were using your techniques and altered versions of your equipment in asari military hospitals within a decade and within civilian hospitals a few years after that. Tell me that's not significant."

"Okay, humans have done some things for medicine, but really what else? We've annoyed a lot more people than we've managed to please."

"This may be less important, but skyball has changed a lot since you arrived. Your cricket and baseball have been the only non-asari sports to influence skyball in three millennia. Not even the turians, who have some pretty similar games, have caused any change to skyball, and they've been around for centuries on the galactic stage. And the krogan love your American football and rugby, although I do not see the point in those particular games. Human have influenced the galaxy more than any other species has done in the same amount of time."

"I suppose we have done some stuff. Listen, I better get back to my job, but it was nice talking." The Lieutenant ran off, clutching his Styrofoam cup full of coffee in one hand as he returned to his station within the depths of the command bunker. Nelyna relaxed in her chair before Anyana disengaged her cloak right beside her, earning a squeak in surprise.

"Goddess, you scared me."

"Were you flirting with him, love?"

"No. I wasn't, but perhaps the nice Lieutenant didn't notice the band around my wrist. Is it still visible? I don't think it was during the conversation." Nelyna tried to busy herself with making sure the band was visible outside the leather sleeve of her commando outfit. Anyana leant over, fiddling with the piece of jewellery until it sat perfectly on the wrist.

"For the most part, we humans don't know what those bands are." Hastings spoke up from the bench that he had been sitting on, being careful not to break the construction with the weight of his armour. "We'd just think they're fancy bracelets, even though they mean so much more to you."

"Just like we don't get those gold rings that you wear on the fourth thing of your left hand. What are those things for anyway?" A few groans greeted Nelyna's question, the irony of the situation not dawning on her until Anyana whispered quietly in her ear. The teal asari blushed a dark purple once she realised what she had said. "Sorry."

Deciding that enough was enough, Tela cleared her throat from the side of the bunker, gaining everyone's attention instantly as the room immediately silenced. "If you two are finished, Lieutenant?"

"Right. We've got everyone on our list, plus Nelyna, Anyana and four emergency cases from the infirmary here at CMA. That makes fifteen of us to be taken up in the Kodiak up to the Normandy." Naylor strode to the centre of the room, everyone's eyes on him as he spoke. "We only have time for one trip into orbit, so we'll be squeezing everyone in tightly and it'll have to stay that way until we get to the Normandy in orbit. Admiral Anderson has a group moving the triage cases to the landing zone, and he's organised a Trident fighter to deploy out to London as cover against that Hades.

"Nelyna and Anyana will be up in the cockpit with the pilot, while we'll have to make space for the four medical cases on the floor of the shuttle and strap them to the deck before we board everyone else up and take off. This will take a bit of thinking and speed on our part so that we can take off before dawn, but we should be able to fit everyone in."

"How long till dawn?"

"It's 0200 right now, so two and a quarter hours. We have to wait, however, for the Normandy to get into position over Britain and then launch the Kodiak as well, which could take anything up to an hour to do." Naylor's omni-tool buzzed with a received message, and as soon as he read it he knew that the role Anderson had volunteered for had been completed. "Alright, the triage cases are at the landing zone. Let's hustle."

* * *

"Cortez's shuttle is on approach, Lieutenant. ETA is fifteen minutes." Hastings' message was good news for Naylor's heart rate, which immediately began to slow as he grew less stressed about the impending extraction. Since his team had left the command bunker, the Reapers had been conspicuously silent in their activities, but anyone could take a well educated guess and say that they would conveniently arrive just before the shuttle took off for the Normandy, postponing their return to the vessel for a very long period of time.

"0500 hours then. We're cutting it quite fine for light."

"We'll be fine, Naylor. Trust me."

"Trusting a Spectre?" Tela laughed, placing a hand on Naylor's shoulder in reassurance.

"We'll do fine. Things were tighter for time on Nasurn and we completed the mission there." Seeing Naylor's face scowl slightly at the memory, Tela immediately began to regret the comment, turning away to play with her Neophyte for the umpteenth time. The group around them were all in similar stages of boredom, not even the prospect of getting off world exciting them. Scuito and her team of engineers had made themselves useful by repairing a Mako in the meantime, but even now Smith and Murdoch were showing similar signs of wanting to get the last barrier to their departure over and done with. It felt to Naylor like a wait for security checks to be completed while at a spaceport.

Suddenly two shapes appeared on the horizon, one moving far faster than the other but both on a course for the Academy's landing pad. An F-61 Trident blasted overhead, pumping flares and pulling a roll of the wings in recognition of the cheering ground forces below the pilot. As the fighter sped towards London, the second object became much clearer – a UT-47 Kodiak. It was a very, very welcome sight for the tired soldiers below.

"Alright, we're up! Let's go." Naylor's shouts brought the group to their feet as they all watched the Kodiak approach the landing pad. Unfortunately, that meant they couldn't see a third object streak down from the heavens.

"INCOMING!" Thankfully the cry was enough, Naylor throwing himself and Tela to the floor while shouting at everyone else to take cover. Scuito, Anyana and Nelyna all took cover behind an ammunition crate, while Hastings pulled Collins quickly behind the repaired Mako's hull. The engineers, not hearing the call and only hearing Naylor's shout at the last minute, made all due haste for a sandbagged position by the edge of the landing pad, ten metres away. They wouldn't make it.

The fiery explosion heralded the arrival of a Reaper assault pod, the synthetics' chosen method of orbit to ground transportation, but the roar from the single occupant was what made Naylor instantly wish he hadn't been so impatient. The Brute charged out of the remnants of the assault pod, missing the Mako by a few centimetres. Except that was the plan. Hastings jumped out of the way, routing all power to his servos to do so, but Collins was not as fast. She activated her cloak to try and dodge the attack, but the swinging arm of the brute, missing Hastings after he jumped again out of the way, sliced through her side and up into her chest. With a sick crunch her ribcage was split in two, and her lifeless body soon fell to the ground. The young specialist had pulled her balaclava off a long time ago, and from where Naylor crouched in cover, he could see every detail on her shocked face as her life left her.

"Contact Brute! In the perimeter!" Naylor levelled his Mattock, firing away at the gaps in the brute's armour plating, but to no avail. The war beast shrugged thr rounds off and turned its malicious attention towards Hastings, who barely had time to draw his Typhoon before it was crushed and swiped away by the Reaper unit's claws. The Destroyer tried to dodge round the brute's right hand side, but it saw his move too early and lashed out with a foot, tripping the soldier over and breaking both his legs from the impact. Before the brute could deliver the killing blow, a stamp to the head or chest, Anyana and Nelyna both rose out of cover, latching onto Hastings and tugging the soldier out of harm's way with their biotics. Tela joined them a second later, and between them the three could generate enough of a current to pull Hastings behind the cover that Naylor and Tela held before turning their attention back to the brute. Scuito had charged the thing in an almost suicidal manner, but she was just far away to allow Naylor a chance to hurl a grenade from Hastings' belt at the beast, catching its attention. For a few seconds the brute tracked Naylor as he ran towards it, but as it roared a challenge to the Lieutenant suddenly it clocked onto Scuito's arc grenade rolling down its throat. The explosion wasn't messy, the destroyed flesh being kept within the shell of the brute thanks to its armour, but a kill was a kill.

As Cortez' shuttle sped into the landing zone, Naylor frantically searched for the other four engineers that they were supposed to have been evacuating. Suddenly he heard a sob from where Scuito stood beside four burning and lifeless bodies. The others had been killed by the brute's landing, with no way that any of them could have been saved. It was definitely a cruel way to go, and for a brief moment Naylor found himself imagining what they would have felt when they were caught in the impact.

"Naylor, we need to go! Naylor!" Tela grabbed Naylor by the shoulder and pushed him towards the idling shuttle. Eight Alliance soldiers ran out into the landing pad to grab the four stretchers and haul them onto the Kodiak, only to have them hit a stack of crates before they could be secured against the floor by the soldiers. Naylor suddenly remembered, hollering at the soldiers to get the crates off the shuttle and drag them to the front lines. The names on the boxes said it all – Avenger, Vindicator, Katana. Over a hundred small arms and thousands of thermal clips were handed over in return for the four wounded soldiers as the skies lit up in the orange glow of hundreds upon hundreds of Reaper assault pods falling all around and inside the perimeter. Tela was right – stay too long and they'd all die, so as soon as Nelyna and Anyana had passed off the last of the crates, and Scuito had secured the last of the stretcher cases, Naylor jumped onboard with Tela at his side and shouted at Cortez to leave the landing zone behind. They left the ground just as an assault pod smashed into the corpse of the brute, incinerating it as five husks scrambled out and charged at the nearest Alliance soldiers on the ground.

Inside the compartment, Naylor slumped against the dividing wall between the Kodiak's crew compartment and the passenger bay, his helmet lying by his side. Collins was dead, four of the engineers was dead and Hastings' wounded body had been pulled away by a medical team at the last minute after being biotically hauled into cover by the three asari. Shutting his eyes, Naylor was out cold instantly.

* * *

Cortez' shuttle journey back from London was the second last one to dock, and Shepard was working her crew overtime to get the shuttle bay cleared in time for the arrival of the next one. Naylor watched distantly from the inside of the Kodiak as Tela was the first one to step off the shuttle, almost collapsing in exhaustion as she did so. A helpful hand from Shepard stopped the asari Spectre from breaking her nose on the metal floor of the hangar, and with a few words of encouragement Spectre led Spectre out to the elevator and up to the crew deck. Nelyna and Anyana had taken a beating from the fiery arrival of the brute, shrapnel causing a number of flesh wounds to the pair of them, and they were rushed away to the temporary medical bay at the side of the hangar bay where Chakwas and the other medically-trained crewmembers could take a look at them. The four stretcher cases were taken into the medbay proper, placed on the beds there to give them the best chance of surviving the journey back to Nova Station.

As it came to his turn to get off the shuttle, being politely asked by Cortez to hurry as Khan and the final shuttle of the mission was arriving soon, Naylor barely felt a thing as his legs carried him towards the elevator, only to spin and fall forwards towards the weapon racks at the side of the armoury. He didn't notice the arms catching him before he slammed head first into the solid metal containers.

"Peter? Peter, are you alright?" Naylor followed the sound of the voice, finding Liara embracing him in both arms as she tried to find some sign of life in the Lieutenant. As he turned his head to face her, she gasped in shock. "Goddess, your face!" Evidently Liara had seen something on his left cheek as he turned his head towards her, and subconsciously, Naylor reached a hand up to his cheek, which suddenly stung as his gauntlet touched the raw and bloody flesh there. He then caught a reflection in the mirror. Liara looked over the scar and then looked over to the temporary medbay, which was packed with wounded, and then decided against it. "Come on, I have some medigel in my cabin."

Liara pulled Naylor up by the arm, lifting it around her shoulders and trying, in vain, to take his weight as they stood up together. Instead, she almost fell were it not for Naylor quickly throwing out an arm and weakly grabbing onto the weapons rack behind him for support. Quickly recomposing herself after her near-fall, Liara guided the dazed lieutenant into the elevator, and after a slow ride to Deck Three she guided him into her cabin, setting him down on the bed and going out into the rest of the room to find her medigel. When she returned, Naylor still looked distant and unfocussed, but he at least recognised what the asari was doing and gave her as much help as possible while she applied the gel to his torn-open cheek.

"What happened down there?"

"A brute landed by us. Shrapnel wound from the explosion caught both me and the two asari we brought back from the surface as well."

"Who are they?"

"Nelyna T'Sira and her bondmate Anyana Carra."

"Matriarch Lidanya's daughter. I never knew." Liara finished applying the medigel, touching off any excess with her little finger and wiping it away on the fabric of her outfit. "Peter, you've cared for me on other occasions. What's happening now?"

Naylor cleared his throat, trying to work out what to say without getting himself confused in any way. "We were sent to Earth to find five operatives for Goodwood, and ended up with two wounded asari, a wounded Paladin and only one of the five people we were sent to find." Naylor's voice began cracking, and he tried to keep the emotions in check but everything failed him at that moment. "I lost five men under my command, including Collins, and Hastings is still down there with both legs broken. I fucked this all up and everyone died because of that."

"You did not fail. You did everything you could and you succeeded in getting at least someone out of there. You even got two asari out that otherwise would not have been able to get off of Earth, and four wounded Alliance soldiers will be able to fight again because of the aid that they will now get because of you getting them out of there." Liara sat down beside him on the bed, turning her shoulders to face him and taking his gauntlets in her hands. "Please don't fault yourself over this. You did well and you saved their lives."

"But I–"

"No. You did well. You're alive, for a start. And that means a lot to me." Liara turned her face away before she said the last sentence, hiding herself from Naylor as she said those last few words. In the moments that followed, the room felt strangely tense, the pair sitting there at the foot of Liara's bed with Naylor's hands in the asari's. But after a few long seconds, Naylor slowly rose to his feet, Liara letting his hands go as he did so and rising herself.

"I'd be killing myself right now if you hadn't said any of that." Having reached the door with Liara still following him, Naylor turned and rested a hand lightly on her shoulder, smiling kindly at the information broker standing in front of him. "Liara, thank you."

As Naylor turned to leave the room, Liara started to raise her hand to try and stop him, though she didn't know why, and her mouth opened yet only a barely audible squeak came out, baffling her as to her own actions. Quickly closing her open mouth as Naylor left the room, Liara turned her attention back to her monitors, booting the terminal up and recommencing work on investigating the geth situation. As below her in the hangar the last shuttle was recovered and the Normandy prepared to make its silent way back to Nova Station in the Argos Rho cluster, Liara buried her thoughts and feelings underneath the rigid discipline of work.

* * *

**A/N: **I had initially planned on heading straight from this bit into the adventures with the quarians, but I've been thinking over the progression of the story and I reckon I need another chapter in after this one to set the scene for some of the stuff in the future. It's a short chapter (circa 3,000 words) and it's all minor stuff, most of it irrelevant to the main storyline, but what it does mean is that the reasons for certain things happening in the future are explained in the story. I like to not have continuity errors…


End file.
